About
Credit: Titilayo Ayangade
Praised for “combining omnivory and brilliance” (The New York Times), six-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,” Stewart is in constant pursuit of his musical authenticity, treating art as a battery for realizing citizenship. As a solo violinist, composer, Artistic Director of the American Composers Orchestra, professor at The Juilliard School, and member of award-winning ensembles PUBLIQuartet and The Mighty Third Rail, he realizes a vision to find personal and powerful connections between 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 2025-2026 season includes a performance of Coleridge-Taylor’s Ballade with the National Philharmonic Orchestra; a world premiere at Virginia Symphony Orchestra; commissioning of new American Caprices by American Public Media and Juilliard Pre-College; a performance of GRAMMY®-Nominated Of Love., presented by Seattle Symphony; Seasons of Change with Sybrite 5 in New York City; appointments as the Hartford Symphony Orchestra’s 2025-2026 Joyce C. Willis Artist in Residence and Composer-in-Residence at URI Guitar Festival; and more.
Stewart had multiple albums released in summer 2025: Seasons of Change with Bright Shiny Things; featured soloist in world premiere orchestral recordings by Samuel Coleridge Taylor on AVIE Records alongside the National Philharmonic under Michael Repper; and Sphinx Virtuosi’s summer 2025 album, American Mirror, out with Deutsche Grammophon, which features Stewart’s Drill and Double Down.
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 2022 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; and sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden with Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, and Seal.
Stewart has been nominated for multiple GRAMMY® Awards for Best Classical Instrumental Solo: his recording of Julia Perry’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra with the Experiential Orchestra (Bright Shiny Things) was nominated in 2025, his album of quarantined song cycles and art videos, Of Power (Bright Shiny Things) was nominated in 2021, and his album of Love. – a tribute to his late mother Elektra Kurtis-Stewart – was nominated in 2023. Stewart’s PUBLIQuartet’s album What Is American (Bright Shiny Things) was nominated for a 2023 GRAMMY® Award as well.
Stewart has been commissioned to compose new solo, chamber, and orchestral works by the Seattle Symphony, Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony Orchestra, Carnegie Hall’s Play/USA, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo and members of the New York Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, Juilliard Prep, The Knights, La Jolla Music Society, Sybarite5, the New York Festival of Song, Newport Classical Festival, the Royal Conservatory of Music, the Eastman Cello Institute, Orlando Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and more. In 2022, he was named 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 currently teaches at The Juilliard School and the Perlman Music Program, and for ten years led all levels of music theory and orchestra at the LaGuardia High School for Music & Art and Performing Arts in NYC. Learn more at www.curtisjstewart.com.
How I got here
...
How I got here ...
I was three...
although my folks say I was two…
on an unusual Sunday car ride. We ended up somewhere in the Bronx, I think... walking through shelves of weird gadgets and shapes... “Those, are drums,” my Dad said.
No, “I want to play THAT one…”
pointing to a wooden box I remembered seeing my mom hovering over, hunched at her writing desk, box at her side, in the dimly lit living room.
We opened the box, and there it was, My first violin...
my first…true...
HATE, ha.
Sigh.
I was constantly a fly on the wall at my mom and dad’s shows.
We went to Montreal Jazz Festival, where I waited backstage for an hour long concert, had no idea where the bathroom was, but was too afraid to explore...
Dizzy Gillespie puffed his cheeks out at me in Japan. Don Cherry shared his pocket trumpet with me. I hung out with Amiri Baraka and Max Roach, eating steak frites backstage in Paris every night at La Valette Jazz festival, falling in love with the “thwap” sound of the baritone saxophone.
My mom would embarrass me from stage, and I would hide under the club tables as she played music that was dedicated to me.
I didn’t get into the grad schools of my dreams...so I got a Masters in teaching back home at CUNY Lehman college, and fell into the whirlwind of freelancing, improvising, sessions, teaching teenagers, recording and the rapid group creating and dissolving of New York City.
I was back home, and inspired. For 10 years, I led all levels of music theory and string orchestra at the Laguardia High School for Music & Art and Performing Arts, while simultaneously developing material for an album called Of Color, exploring the human psychology and meaning of abstract color via the psychology of skin pigment.
The biggest honor was stepping on stage with my Mom or Dad, at the the now-gone West Village staple, Cornelia Street Cafe, and becoming a voice in their music.
They trusted me with their creations…
We opened the case of a clarinet. My eyes grew wide at the sight of the little mechanisms and shiny metal…
But the violin... was still my obligation.
“Twinkle Twinkle” just wasn’t my jam, you know?
I went to the LaGuardia Performing Arts High School in New York City and got caught up in the “sport” of violin playing: Ripping off concerto runs and trying to impress my friends. I went off to fulfill a dual degree in Mathematics and Violin at the University of Rochester and the Eastman School of Music, where I met some of the best friends of my life, one of which I have developed an entire career with in my improvising classical string quartet, PUBLIQuartet.
when My violin became A vehicle for my voice and ideas, I think people started noticing…
Photo Credit: Steven Pisano
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A recognized Classical virtuoso
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