8 Questions with Curtis Stewart

PUBLIQuartet’s Freedom & Faith is GRAMMY Nominated!
Best Chamber Music/ Small Ensemble Performance

1. Where did you grow up?
   I Grew up in Manhattan, born in Helsinki Finland, where my mom met my dad while she was at the Sibelius Academy and he was on tour with Arthur Blythe. 

2. What made you realize that music was your path?
   I loved watching my folks on stage, and would constantly sing along and imagine myself up there. I got swept up into it

3. How would you describe the music that you typically perform/create?
   It ends up being a lot of things; multi-genre, experimental, technical, theatrical and demanding...but I hope it captures the energy and curiosity that lights me up when I discover a  particularly mess-withable bit of musical material.

4. Who are your biggest musical influences?
   My parents and their stacks of LP’s were my musical playground. I would sneak into the records and play them when they were out on gigs; john Coltrane giant steps, rembetika greek folk songs, Stuff Smith, Prokofiev symphonies were constantly blasting through my speakers as a kid.

5. What makes your musical life unique?
   We improvised on the music of Haydn in the historic court wing of the met, then lead a tour to the pigmy boat made of the shields of hundreds of tribes and played music that emulated that interweaving of people’s and sounds. Our residency at the Met museum allowed us to tap into so many potentialities that were unavailable up till that moment, and truly begin to own what we do.

6. Has there been one particular moment in your musical career that you're most proud of

   I get called to be an improvising classical and jazz violinist in the spaces where I never thought I would exist! With Stevie wonder, at the Juilliard school, on the stage of Carnegie Hall and with my initial musical heroes, my family and friends. I was rejected from so many traditional spaces, just to be accepted for exactly what I am passionate about. My career has been funny that way.

7. What is your favorite thing about your new album? 

   I love our repertoire choices on this album. We plumbed the stacks and found ways to create music for quartet by the composers we admire and rock to. As a classical musician, I feel privileged that this music is even seen and accepted as classical, I remember my folks telling me about their own trials and tribulations, where they would get a knock on the door of their practice room if they were playing anything other than Bach Brahms or Beethoven. We are able to curate the music that truly speaks to us, and it is not only accepted, but lauded. I am glad I get to share that energy with my parents today.

8. Why was it important to you to feature women artists on this album?

   This is one of the many projects we are creating in the name of exploring underrepresented voices in the classical world. We do the same for young composers, jazz composers in classical settings, and classical composers of color. We aren’t doing just because it’s important, we do it because that is what we have always done! I have always been passionate about looking beyond the cannon for inspiration, to truly understand what it means to compose “your own” music in any style and from many perspectives. Listening to the same voices almost shuts you off to the potentialities of music outside of that language, anything outside the great B’s becomes meaningless to your ear. I have always been interested in what sound can really Mean to many types and individual humans, why sound moves our bodies, why tones ache our heart; and these days why we historically continue to fight to have our sounds heard despite lack of access to the tools of power,  money and popularity.