Who or what are the most significant influences on your musical life and career as a composer?
My parents were my biggest influences: my mom Elektra Kurtis was a violinist and composer herself, and my dad Bob Stewart is a luminary jazz tuba player, innovating technical possibilities on the instrument. My mom constantly tapped into her identity and family history as authentic inspiration for her work, and my dad’s sense of power and innovation was mesmerizing as a kid. Those are the two biggest qualities I look for in my own creation: honesty and instrumental magic!
What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?
I grew up in a very specific musical household, full of experimental classical and jazz music, free improvisation and opera everywhere. For me tradition is left of center, and I have to reconcile my sense of what is “traditional” with the typical classical violinist or composer who may have found their voice through schooling or going to concerts.
What are the special challenges/pleasures of working on a commissioned piece?
I love exploring a new musical world, trying combinations of sounds, linking harmonies in different parts of various instruments, making myself want to dance to the music I create. It can be a challenge, the more music I write, the more I look for increasingly distinct sounds—sounds that are hard to put into words. It takes more time to uncover musical material that feels exciting, so I rely on techniques to improvise with materials as a starting point until it works its way into my ear and body – the sounds energize their own composition.
Of which works are you most proud?
I am very proud of these 24 American Caprices—over an hour of solo violin music, with each one occupying its own musical world. I have learned to play 12 of them and am working on the rest!
How would you characterise your compositional language?
My music focuses on movement and the impulse to move, with harmony energizing rhythmic constellations of sound. Stylistically, I am drawn to American folk and classical music that speaks to an embodied quality. Somewhere between the soul music I listened to in my house on Sundays growing up, the crazy complex rhythms of Greek Rembetika my mom took me to, the experimental textural music of the downtown NYC scene, and the hip hop I heard from passing by cars just south of the Bronx.
How do you work?
As an improvising classical musician, I practice composing by creating new rules for improvisation everyday: new harmonic sets of pitches to use, new rhythmic constellations based on music I may have heard, and new textures based on music I might be working on performing. These improvisations all get recorded into my DAW, Ableton, and I curate these mini-creations, chopping and editing them into a sort of living bouquet of a composition, trimming portions here, expanding portions there to tailor seemingly separate musical impulses into one complementary sequence of sounds. I love hearing the music back, and the line between Curtis the composer and Curtis the violinist remains blurred – which helps me remain creative!
As a musician, what is your definition of success?
Success is remaining inspired and feeling connected to the musicians and the music I work with! Success is having the privilege to share my musical ideas and sense with listeners in all parts of the country.
What advice would you give to young/aspiring composers?
If you build it they will come! Create your own means, don’t wait to be “picked.” It is never too soon or too late to find your own means of production, keep listening to music, and keep getting those ideas from your head and ear onto some paper and out into the world so your musical imagination exists in whatever form it can!
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