Legacy of Piano

Since 1924, the Curtis Institute of Music’s piano department has been recognized as one of the best in the world, eminently positioned to fulfill the school’s foundational mission: “to hand down through contemporary masters the great traditions of the past.”

  • There aren’t any limits for the kinds of creative thinkers Curtis has—especially recently—produced…They’re here to learn the language of the past and empowered to translate it in creative ways.

    — Amy Yang (Piano ’06), associate dean of piano studies and artistic initiatives

Three early faculty members—Josef Hofmann, Mieczysław Horszowski, and Isabelle Vengerova—belonged to a tradition of piano pedagogy directly traceable to luminaries of the instrument. Hofmann, for example, was the only private pupil of Anton Rubinstein, who studied with Carl Czerny, one of Ludwig van Beethoven’s students. Two other early faculty members with important ties of their own to European pedagogy and performance traditions were Rudolf Serkin and David Saperton. In a Curtis tradition that continues to the present, both Hofmann and Serkin also served as directors of the school while remaining active as performers and teachers.

Extending this legacy were several prominent alumni who went on to join the faculty, including Eleanor Sokoloff, Vladimir Sokoloff, Jorge Bolet, Gary Graffman, Seymour Lipkin, and Peter Serkin, Rudolf Serkin’s son. Lipkin and Graffman—who also served as Curtis’s director for two decades—both remained on the faculty for 40 years or more, but they were still far behind Eleanor Sokoloff, who taught at Curtis for more than eight decades.

Today, Curtis’s primary piano faculty comprises five esteemed performers and pedagogues, all of whom are Curtis alumni: Yefim Bronfman, Robert McDonald, Meng-Chieh Liu, Ignat Solzhenitsyn, and Michelle Cann. Cann, who studied with McDonald—himself a student of Lipkin, Horszowski, and R. Serkin—was appointed in 2020 as the inaugural Eleanor Sokoloff Chair. This passionate, vibrant pedagogical legacy runs deep beneath Curtis’s overall philosophy of music-making and learning.

In addition to the exceptional musicians who have served on Curtis’s piano faculty, the department’s 550 alumni include an impressive roster of internationally recognized soloists, chamber musicians, and collaborative pianists; leading music pedagogues; founders and administrators of schools and festivals; and others who have carved out unique careers as concert curators, crossover artists, and other professional roles. All belong to an unparalleled legacy of learning that Curtis was singularly able to provide.

Eleanor Sokoloff

No record of the legacy of Curtis’s piano department would be complete without celebrating the influence of Eleanor Sokoloff. For 84 years, Mrs. Sokoloff was a vital artistic leader and bastion at the school, taking over as matriarch after Mary Louise Curtis Bok died in 1970.

“I don’t know how I got in. They tested my ear, and I was way off. I only had three years of training. I had no theory. Technically, I had nothing.” Obviously, David Saperton disagreed upon hearing her. But, if Mrs. Sokoloff came to Curtis with nothing, she gave her students everything.

She grew up at Curtis and had a hand in educating generations of influential pianists and musicians. More than 75 of her students have performed as soloists with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and many more from across the school drank the “strong tea” she poured out of Efrem Zimbalist’s Russian samovar every Wednesday at afternoon tea.

Mrs. Sokoloff was born in Cleveland and started studying at Curtis when she was seventeen years old. She moved to Philadelphia during the Great Depression, where her parents found her a room for $8 a week. She would make Rittenhouse Square her home for the next 90 years. She met her husband, pianist Vladimir “Billy” Sokoloff, during her time in school, and they formed a distinguished duo both on and off the stage.

She started her career at Curtis teaching piano to non-majors, and from 1936 to 1949 educated notable musicians like Aaron Rosand, Jaime Laredo, and Michael Tree.

When piano prodigy Susan Starr was admitted to Curtis at the age of seven, Mrs. Sokoloff was appointed to the major piano faculty, a post she held for the next 71 years. The first of her more than 120 students graduated in 1961, and the last in 2019. Her notable students include Lambert Orkis, Mei-Mei Meng, and Kit Armstrong.

It’s clear that Eleanor Sokoloff found her family at Curtis and then continued to grow it through a lifetime of teaching. When asked about her life at the school she responded, “It’s just luck. My life has been one lucky episode after another.” What Mrs. Sokoloff called luck, her students, colleagues, friends, and family might call fortune.

Hats off to an incredible life, and an indelible legacy.

Faculty Timeline

  • * Accompanying
  • † Also chamber music
  • Bertha Bert
    Piano — 1925-25
  • Austin Conradi
    Piano — 1924-25
  • Isadore Freed
    Piano — 1924-25
  • George Boyle
    Piano — 1924-26
  • Josef Hofmann
    Piano — 1924-38
  • David Saperton
    David Saperton
    Piano — 1924-41
  • Harry Kaufman
    Harry Kaufman*
    Piano — 1924-41
  • Isabelle Vengerova
    Isabelle Vengerova
    Piano — 1924-56
  • Wilhelm Backhaus
    Piano — 1925-26
  • Benno Moiselwitsch
    Piano — 1926-27
  • Moriz Rosenthal
    Piano — 1926-28
  • Alexander Lambert
    Piano — 1928-30
  • Mieczysław Munz
    Piano — 1930-32, 1941-42
  • Eleanor Sokoloff
    Piano — 1936-20
  • Eleanor and Vladimir Sokoloff
    Vladimir Sokoloff*†
    Piano — 1938-94
  • Vera Brodsky Lawrence†
    Piano — 1937-38
  • Harold Triggs†
    Piano — 1937-38
  • Rudolf Serkin
    Rudolf Serkin
    Piano — 1939-76
  • Bolet Jorge
    Jorge Bolet
    Piano — 1939-42, 1977-86
  • Horszowski Mieczyslav
    Mieczysław Horszowski
    Piano — 1942-93
  • Lee Luvisi
    Piano — 1956-62
  • Lipkin Seymour
    Seymour Lipkin
    Piano — 1969-15
  • Gary Graffman
    Piano — 1980-21
  • Leon Fleisher
    Leon Fleisher
    Piano — 1986-11
  • Claude Frank
    Piano — 1988-14
  • Peter Serkin
    Piano — 1992-02
  • Meng-Chieh Liu†
    Piano — 1993-Present
  • Ignat Solzhenitsyn
    Ignat Solzhenitsyn†
    Piano — 2004-Present
  • Robert Mcdonald
    Robert McDonald†
    Piano — 2007-Present
  • Jonathan Bailey Biss
    Piano — 2011-21
  • Yefim Bronfman
    Piano — 2020-Present
  • Michelle Cann
    Michelle Cann
    Piano — 2020-Present
A chinoiserie-decorated grand piano in the Bok Board Room
  • Facing Rittenhouse Square in the Bok Board Room, beneath a portrait of our founding patroness, stands a chinoiserie-decorated grand piano that belonged to Mary Louise Curtis Bok’s father
Samuel Barber and Mary Louise Curtis Bok on stage with a piano
  • Curtis’s 1938 holiday party entertainment ended with alumnus Samuel Barber singing Schubert songs, accompanied by Mary Louise Curtis Bok, who rarely performed in public.
Eleanor Sokoloff in Maine
  • Eleanor Sokoloff enjoying a summer in Maine in 2014.
Eleanor and Vladimir Sokoloff at the piano
  • Eleanor and Vladimir “Billy” Sokoloff reading a four-hands piece at home in the 1940s. Music was a major part of the Sokoloff home; daughter Kathy, a violinist, was the director of development at the Settlement Music School, and Laurie studied flute and piccolo (’66) and was principal piccolo of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
1924
First Piano Alum

Marjorie R. Maurer

510
Total Piano Alumni

How many names do you recognize on this list of Curtis piano alumni? View list

12
Piano Studio

There are up to 12 piano students studying at Curtis in any given year.

Noted Piano Alumni

Josef Hofmann

1910–2011
Accompanying ’35, Faculty ’35–’40

Josef Hofmann

After graduating, Berkowitz taught form and analysis at Curtis until he joined cellist Gregor Piatigorsky in a collaborative partnership that lasted three decades. Later, he served as Serge Koussevitzky’s assistant and dean of the Tanglewood Music Center, leading faculty including Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, during the tenure of Charles Munch.
Isabelle Vengerova

1877–1956
Faculty ’24–’56

Isabelle Vengerova

A formidable presence at Curtis for 32 years, Vengerova was known for her mercurial temperament but fierce dedication to her students, who included Leonard Bernstein, Anthony di Bonaventura, and Gary Graffman. She taught more than 60 students during her tenure, with more than half of them being women. Samuel Barber remarked that, as her student, “one entered into a lifelong love affair with the piano, with all the exigencies, delights, and tortures involved in such a relationship.”
Ursula Gay Curd

1890–1988
Piano ’26

Ursula Guy Curd

Curd displayed a musical ability that was described as “unforgettable” by the Pittsburgh Courier, and earned a place in Curtis’s inaugural class. Curd started her formal studies at eight years old in her hometown of Topeka. She taught younger students while pursuing advanced studies at Curtis in the days before our tuition-free policy, and subsequently taught more than three decades in the School District of Philadelphia.
Jeanne Behrend

1911–1988
Piano ’34, Faculty ’37–’44

Jeanne Behrend

Recognized as a “pioneer performer of American music,” Behrend introduced U.S. audiences to South and Central American composers, while championing works by Louis Moreau Gottschalk and her friends Samuel Barber and Gian Carlo Menotti. She was also a prize-winning composer and was named to Brazil’s Order of the Southern Cross for her advocacy of Brazilian music. Among the first to advocate for the incorporation of American music into the core conservatory curriculum, she exerted an influence on repertoire study that is still felt to this day.
Ralph Berkowitz

1910–2011
Accompanying ’35, Faculty ’35–’40

Ralph Berkowitz

After graduating, Berkowitz taught form and analysis at Curtis until he joined cellist Gregor Piatigorsky in a collaborative partnership that lasted three decades. Later, he served as Serge Koussevitzky’s assistant and dean of the Tanglewood Music Center, leading faculty including Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, during the tenure of Charles Munch.
Serkin and Busch

1903–1991
Faculty ’39–’76

Rudolf Serkin

Serkin was a renowned Beethoven interpreter closely associated with famed violinist and composer Adolf Busch. He performed extensively with Busch and eventually married Busch’s daughter in 1935. The two families later immigrated to the U.S., where Serkin joined the Curtis faculty, and later founded the Marlboro Music Festival with the Busch and Moyse families.
Cecilia Brauer playing the armonica, an instrument composed of a series of glass bowls, at the rotunda of The Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, in 2007.

1923–2021
Piano ’40

Cecilia Gniewek Brauer

The elder sister of violinist Raymond Gniewek, Brauer forged a distinctive career in music. She played celesta and piano in the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra for nearly four decades, and reintroduced the glass armonica, invented by Benjamin Franklin, to the modern orchestra pit. Her otherworldly playing is audible in recent recordings of Lucia di Lammermoor.
Gary Graffman

Piano ’46, Faculty ’80–’21, Director ’86–’06

Gary Graffman

Graffman graduated from Curtis at seventeen after being admitted at the tender age of seven and won the Leventritt Competition three years later. After injuring his right hand in 1979, he has played repertoire for the left hand only, including numerous new works composed specifically for him. He is also the author of the acclaimed memoir I Really Should Be Practicing. His notable students include Lang Lang, Yuja Wang, and Ignat Solzhenitsyn.
Lipkin Seymour

1927–2015
Piano ’47, Faculty ’69–’15

Seymour Lipkin

As a student at Curtis, Lipkin was invited to join violinist Jascha Heifetz on a USO tour, during which they played more than 60 concerts for American troops during World War II. Lipkin went on to win the Rachmaninoff Fund Contest, assisted George Szell and Leonard Bernstein, and taught at Curtis for more than four decades. His younger sister, Eleanor Lipkin, was also a gifted pianist and Curtis alumna.
Natividad

1935–2021
Piano ’56

Natividad “Nena” del Rosario-Villanueva

Rosario-Villanueva left Manila for the U.S. on the USS General W. H. Gordon when she was eleven years old, and took the train from San Francisco to Philadelphia to study at Curtis. Her mother found a piano for her to practice on during every leg of her voyage. She made her Carnegie Hall debut at twelve, received a lifetime achievement award from the city of Manila, and gave back to her art as a professor of music at the University of the Philippines.
Margaret Harris

1943–2000
Piano ’56

Margaret Rosezarian Harris

The daughter of a railroad mechanic and dressmaker, Harris was a pioneering woman in music who, after attending Curtis, was music director for Hair and other Broadway productions. Later, she was the first Black woman to conduct the L.A. Philharmonic, the symphonies of Chicago and Detroit, and thirteen other major U.S. orchestras. Harris taught and worked tirelessly to promote and inspire women and minorities in the field of conducting and classical music.
Ruth Meckler Laredo

1937–2005
Piano ’60

Ruth Meckler Laredo

Often referred to as “America’s First Lady of the Piano,” Laredo was known for her interpretations of Scriabin and Rachmaninoff, as well as for performing in bespoke couture fashion. Her sophisticated style led to a role in Woody Allen’s Small Time Crooks, playing a caricature of herself. She created a much- beloved series at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Concerts with Commentary,” in which she hosted open discussions with audiences about the music she played.
Susan Starr

Piano ’61

Susan Starr

Starr started studying with Eleanor Sokoloff at four, began at Curtis when she was seven, and studied with Rudolf Serkin from age thirteen until her graduation. A year later, she won silver at the International Tchaikovsky Competition. She has performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra on at least 50 occasions, having debuted with them at the age of five, in addition to appearing alongside many eminent ensembles and conductors. Also a sought-after pedagogue, she has taught at Curtis, the University of the Arts, and Rutgers University.
Julius Eastman

1940–1990
Piano ’62

Julius Eastman

Eastman began studying piano at fourteen and quickly excelled. He entered Curtis as a pianist before focusing on composition. His minimalist compositions, championed by fellow Curtis alumnus Lukas Foss, proudly addressed his life as a gay Black man, and incorporated elements of experimental music and pop to create what he called “organic music.” Eastman passed away in 1990 of cardiac arrest before witnessing his work’s revival in recent years.
Peter Serkin

1947–2020
Piano ’64, Faculty ’92–’02

Peter Serkin

Rudolf Serkin’s son Peter was a leading interpreter of contemporary music who was also known for his illuminating performances of established repertoire. In 1973 he made two Grammy-nominated recordings, Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos. 14–19 and Messiaen’s epic Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus, which he occasionally performed with a light show. His notable students include Anna Polonsky and Jennifer Lim.
Andrew Wolf

1943–1985
Piano ’66

Andrew Wolf

Grandson of Lea Luboshutz and nephew of Boris Goldovsky, Wolf was a distinguished chamber music pianist. He performed regularly with violinist Isaac Stern, including at a White House state dinner for President Ronald Reagan and Premier Zhao Ziyang. A national chamber music competition and the Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award were created in his honor by Bay Chamber, a summer music colony in Rockport, Maine, which he founded with his brother Tom.
William Horn

Piano ’70

William A. Horn, M.D.

Shortly after graduating from Eleanor Sokoloff’s studio, Horn won the Philadelphia Orchestra concerto competition, making his solo debut with Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1. He subsequently decided to study medicine and graduated from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Music remains a great inspiration for him, and he is a passionate advocate for Curtis.

Piano ’71, Faculty ’82–’20

Mei-Mei Meng

Meng taught solfège to generations of students at Curtis, where her classes were challenging and required just as much discipline as private lessons. Her rigorous curriculum of Danhauser passages, rhythmic exercises, and Bach chorales provided a musical foundation for not just pianists but all musicians graduating from Curtis.
Sarah Rothenberg

Piano ’79

Sarah Rothenberg

Rothenberg has been artistic director of Houston’s DACAMERA since 1994, establishing a unique career as a performer, writer, and creator of innovative concerts connecting music with literature and the visual arts. She is committed to performing both neglected repertoire and new music, with more than 85 premieres to her credit.
Ghenady Meirson

1957–2021
Piano ’81, Accompanying ’84, Faculty ’90–’21

Ghenady Meirson

A beloved vocal coach, Meirson, born in Odessa, Ukraine, was a specialist in Russian repertoire. He founded Russian Opera Workshop and coached Russian diction for the Philadelphia Orchestra, Opera Philadelphia, the Academy of Vocal Arts, and Curtis. On his first day at Curtis, he met fellow student, vocalist Laura May Davis; they later wed and had two children together. Meirson was the founder of PrivateLessons.com, a membership-based network connecting everyday musicians with master teachers.
Joanne Pearce Martin

Accompanying ’86

Joanne Pearce Martin

Keyboardist for the L.A. Philharmonic since 2001, Martin also performs extensively as a soloist and chamber musician, including as a two-piano team with her husband, fellow alumnus Gavin Martin. She also records and performs on the theremin. When not making music, she enjoys being airborne as an instrument-rated pilot and a master skydiver.
Leon Fleisher

1928–2020
Faculty ‘86–’11

Leon Fleisher

Fleisher was in the midst of a thriving performing career when he developed focal dystonia and could no longer play with his right hand. He was active as a conductor and continued to perform as a left-handed pianist until he found treatments that allowed him to resume playing with two hands. His notable students include Jonathan Biss, Stewart Goodyear, and Hiroko Sasaki.
Rieko Aizawa

Piano ’94

Rieko Aizawa

Aizawa is a member of the acclaimed Horszowski Trio, an ensemble inspired by the artistry and humanity of her teacher, Mieczysław Horszowski. Aizawa was his last pupil, working with him until a month before his death. The trio performs works by prominent composers with whom Horszowski worked during his lifetime, including Fauré, Granados, Martinů, and Villa-Lobos. As did Horszowski, the trio also champions works by living composers.
Vitalij Kuprij

Piano ’00

Vitalij Kuprij

Kuprij has pursued a dual career as a classical pianist and rock musician from the time he was a teenager. Since 2009, he has played keyboards for the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, a rock band known for its visually spectacular concerts and themed tours, while also composing songs for neoclassical metal bands including Ring of Fire.
Jenny Chai

Piano ’04

Jenny Q Chai

Chai creates layered programs to explore and unite elements of science, nature, fashion, and art. She uses groundbreaking score-reading software to create real-time animations, enabling instantaneous multimedia performances. She is on the piano faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, is a Curtis alumni mentor, and is founder of the FaceArt Institute in Shanghai which bridges Western music education traditions in China.
Pallavi Mahidhara

Piano ’10

Pallavi Mahidhara

Indian-American pianist Mahidhara made her orchestral debut at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago at the age of ten. In addition to a full performing schedule, she is artistic advisor to the Young Artists Program at the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid, and is a Curtis alumni mentor. She hosts “The Conscious Artist,” a podcast dedicated to mental health awareness for musicians, artists, and everyone else.
George Xiaoyuan Fu

Piano ’16

George Xiaoyuan Fu

An avid chamber musician, Fu is a member of Trio Zimbalist with fellow alumni Josef Spacek and Timotheos Gavriilidis-Petrin. During the pandemic he produced a documentary film, Solitude with Schubert, featuring himself and soprano Lotte Betts Dean. Supported by Curtis’s new Young Alumni Fund, the film explores themes of lightness and darkness, loneliness, and holding hope for life in Schubert’s music.
Hsu siblings

Piano ’13,Composition ’15

Piano ’15, Musical Studies Faculty ‘18–present

Piano ’19

Andrew Hsu , Ashley Hsu, Daniel Hsu

The Hsu siblings represent a new Curtis legacy. Andrew and Daniel entered in 2008 at thirteen and ten respectively, and Ashley followed in 2010. Their time at Curtis marked the first occasion since the early 1930s that three siblings attended concurrently, and the first time in the school’s history that all three played the same instrument.

Legacy of Curtis

Leading to its centennial year, Curtis began a multi-year project celebrating each of the school’s major areas of study.

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