About

Praised for “combining omnivory and brilliance” (The New York Times), seven-time GRAMMY® Award-nominated violinist and composer Curtis Stewart translates stories of American self-determination to the concert stage. Tearing down the facade of “classical violinist,” he treats his art as a catalyst for realizing citizenship. Passionate about elevating the voices of others, Stewart is described by The New York Times as “gregarious and charismatic, with an easygoing charm you rarely encounter in the intense, inward-facing world of classical music.” 

As a solo violinist, composer, Artistic Director of the American Composers Orchestra, professor at The Juilliard School, and member of the award-winning PUBLIQuartet, Stewart finds personal and powerful connections among styles, cultures, and musics. He was awarded a 2025 Sphinx Medal of Excellence in recognition of extraordinary leaders in the classical music field who are transforming lives while addressing systemic obstacles within Black and Latino communities. 

Stewart’s most recent project, 24 American Caprices, a contemporary response to the virtuoso violin caprice tradition, received its world premiere with the Gateways Festival Orchestra at the Eastman School of Music and Kaufman Music Center, with future performances to include Boston University Tanglewood Institute, D-Composed, and 92NY. The world premiere recording was released in summer 2026 on Bright Shiny Things, featuring Stewart alongside violinists Tai Murray, Deborah Buck, Melissa White, Njioma Grevious, Rubén Rengel, and students from The Juilliard School, Special Music School, and the Perlman Music Program. The caprices are quickly being adopted into the canon, including as audition pieces for prestigious conservatories such as The Juilliard School and Yale School of Music. Read the profile in The New York Times. 

Additional highlights of Stewart’s 2026-2027 season include his appointment as Artist-in-Residence with the Wyoming Symphony; the world premiere of a Bartók recomposition with the Northwest Sinfonietta led by Jeff Meyer; the premiere of a new commission from Nova Linea Music; a solo cello work premiered by Amy Barston at The Juilliard School; and a performance of Barber's Violin Concerto with the Anchorage Symphony.

In his 2025-2026 season, Stewart’s engagements included appearances with the National Philharmonic Orchestra for his first public performance of Coleridge-Taylor’s Ballade; the world premiere of his I wouldn't stop there: in the words of a KING by the Virginia Symphony Orchestra; the commissioning of new American Caprices by American Public Media and Juilliard Pre-College; a performance of GRAMMY®-nominated of Love. presented by Seattle Symphony’s Octave 9 series; and Seasons of Change with Sybarite5 in New York City.

Among many others, Stewart’s compositions have recently been featured by the Sphinx Virtuosi, which performed his Drill on a nationwide tour with Stewart as the group’s Composer-in-Residence; the American Composers Orchestra, which commissioned his Embrace as part of New Virtuoso: Borders and premiered it at Carnegie Hall; and by violin and cello duo Catherine Cho and Amy Sue Barston in a new work commissioned by Juilliard Prep. Stewart has been commissioned to compose new solo, chamber, and orchestral works by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Carnegie Hall's Play/USA, Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony Orchestra, the New York Festival of Song, Newport Classical Festival, the Royal Conservatory of Music, the Eastman Cello Institute, Orlando Philharmonic, The Knights, La Jolla Music Society, Sybarite5, members of the New York Philharmonic and countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, and more. He composed The Famous People, five recompositions of Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances, for violinist Gil Shaham with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra, which received its world premiere in March 2023, followed by a performance by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in 2024, and a recording with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra in 2026.

As a soloist, Curtis Stewart has been presented by Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cal Performances, Washington Performing Arts, Virginia Arts Festival, The Juilliard School, and the GRAMMY® Awards, among many others. He has made special appearances with Los Angeles Opera and singer-songwriter Tamar Kali; as curator and guest soloist with Anthony Roth Costanzo and the New York Philharmonic “Bandwagon,” touring performance installations from NYC’s Whitney Museum, Guggenheim Museum, and Museum of Modern Art; to MTV specials with Wyclef Jean; sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden with Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, and Seal; at Princeton University for his program The American Recital; the Maryland Symphony Orchestra for Bernstein's Serenade and appearances at the Music in the Morning series in Vancouver and the St. Louis Classical Guitar Eclectic Concert Series with Mak Grgic. 

A prolific recording artist, Stewart’s solo album, Seasons of Change, released on Bright Shiny Things in 2025, features Stewart’s own recomposition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, which incorporates audio interviews from unhoused individuals and serves as the frame for an Afrofuturist meditation on climate change, class, and the nature of digital memory. His works Drill and Double Down were featured on Sphinx Virtuosi’s summer 2025 album, American Mirror, out with Deutsche Grammophon, and his work on the 2025 album Coleridge-Taylor: 3 Selections From 24 Negro Melodies, featuring the National Philharmonic under Michael Repper (2025 AVIE Records), was nominated for a GRAMMY® Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo. The world premiere recording of Julia Perry’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra with the Experiential Orchestra, released in 2024 on Bright Shiny Things, was nominated for a GRAMMY® Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo. Both Stewart’s 2021 album of quarantined song cycles and art videos, Of Power (Bright Shiny Things), and his 2023 album, of Love. (New Amsterdam) – a tribute to his late mother, Elektra Kurtis-Stewart – were nominated for GRAMMY® Awards for Best Classical Instrumental Solo. 

Curtis Stewart is a member of award-winning ensemble PUBLIQuartet (Chamber Music America Visionary Award, Concert Artists Guild Award), whose album What Is American (Bright Shiny Things) was nominated for a 2022 GRAMMY® Award. Stewart has worked with many of today's forward-thinking musicians, including Henry Threadgill, SilkRoad Ensemble, Jessie Montgomery, Alicia Hall-Moran and Jason Moran, Mark O’Connor, Julia Bullock, members of the International Contemporary Ensemble, Billy Childs, Alarm Will Sound, Linda Oh, JACK Quartet, members of Snarky Puppy, Don Byron, Matt Wilson, among many others.

Stewart has held residencies at Boston University Tanglewood Institute and Cleveland Institute of Music, and served as Resident Artist at Kaufman Music Center, during which he performed in the world premieres of his own American Caprices and Seasons of Change with the Gateways Festival Orchestra at Eastman School of Music and Kaufman Music Center’s Merkin Hall. In the 2025-2026 season, he served as Hartford Symphony Orchestra’s Joyce C. Willis Artist in Residence and the Composer-in-Residence at URI Guitar Festival. He has held chamber music residencies at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and National Sawdust, and has made return appearances at the Newport, Detroit, Vision, and NYC Winter Jazz Festivals. 

 In 2022, Stewart was appointed Artistic Director of the American Composers Orchestra, a national organization dedicated to the creation, celebration, performance, and promotion of orchestral music by diverse and innovative American composers. An enthusiastic educator, Curtis Stewart teaches “Performance Practice of the Blues” and “Improvised Chamber Music” as well as regularly coaching Chamber Music at The Juilliard School; directs the Contemporary Chamber Music program at the Perlman Music Program; has served on the board of Concert Artists Guild; has conducted several orchestras and opera pit orchestras; and for ten years led all levels of music theory and string orchestra at the LaGuardia High School for Music & Art and Performing Arts in New York City.

Stewart was born into a musical family – his father, avant-garde jazz tuba pioneer Bob Stewart, and his mother, Elektra Kurtis-Stewart, a soulful Greek jazz violinist, formed the framework of his sound world through daring improvisation, rigorous Western classical training, and conceptual composition. Learn more at www.curtisjstewart.com.

Photo Credit: Steven Pisano