Grammy-Winning Eighth Blackbird Helms Schoenberg At Curtis

Once ignored by conservatories and reviled by audiences, Schoenberg’s half-spoken, half-sung PierrotLunaire is being intensively rehearsed for performances by Curtis Institute of Music musicians on Monday and Tuesday of next week (April 15th and 16th).

As The Philadelphia Inquirer’s David Patrick Stearns reports, the instigators are visiting professors who don’t look much different from the students: the modern music ensembleeighth blackbird, who are in the first year of a three-year residency that should extend the Curtis tradition to the cutting edge.