How a Maine Fishing Village Became the Curtis Institute of Music’s Secret Weapon
By Thomas Wolf
The Curtis Institute of Music in its early days.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Curtis Institute of Music, arguably one of the greatest conservatories in the world. In its early years, Curtis had a secret weapon that enhanced the likelihood that its students would play major roles in the classical music world.
It has been a hundred years since the founding of Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music, generally considered one of the top music conservatories in the world.
Celebrations will focus on illustrious alumni like Leonard Bernstein, Samuel Barber, Gary Graffman, and more recently Lang Lang and Hilary Hahn. It will highlight distinguished faculty including pianists Josef Hofmann and Rudolph Serkin, violinists Leopold Auer and Efrem Zimbalist, cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, and conductor Fritz Reiner among many others. Festivities will include concerts, workshops, and parties. But in all that merrymaking and retelling of the school’s glorious past, one aspect of its history may be somewhat obscured. And it is a remarkable story that some say was, for many years, a secret weapon in service of the school’s remarkable success in turning out great musicians. It all has to do with a small fishing village in Maine.
Given how common they are today, there were not a lot of summer music festivals in the early 1930s and even fewer that provided instruction and concert opportunities for talented classical music students. But this was precisely what the Curtis Institute established in Rockport, Maine in 1929. Students could continue the momentum of their hothouse instruction among a faculty constituting a Who’s Who of the music world, all in a dream environment of natural beauty—and all completely paid for by the Institute’s founder, Mary Louise Curtis Bok.
Rockport (Maine) harbor at about the time that Mary Curtis Bok began her transformation of the waterfront.
How did it happen? Rockport had at one time been a prosperous ship-building town famous for its remarkable ice, harvested in the winter, and shipped south before the age of refrigeration.
It was also one of the country’s major sources of lime. But by the 1920s, its various industries were suffering and the only steady source of dollars were fishing on the one hand and wealthy summer people on the other. Among the latter was one of the richest women in America, Mary Louise Curtis Bok, the founder and benefactress of the Curtis Institute.
Josef Hofmann, the Curtis Director who insisted there be a summer colony where students could continue year-round instruction.
Mrs. Bok had established Curtis in 1924 but its early years fell far short of her aspirations. The school had a large, primarily local, student body (more than double the present number) and its faculty was of mixed quality. But that would change when Bok convinced the legendary pianist, Josef Hofmann, to take on the directorship.
Aside from demanding an extraordinarily high fee for his services, Hofmann laid down three other conditions.
Tuition had to be free to attract the best talent available.
He had to be given a free hand in hiring and firing faculty.
And finally, Bok had to provide for year-round instruction.
And it was this third condition that resulted in the Curtis summer colony in Rockport. As a world-wide depression was sapping the incomes of Americans, Mrs. Bok purchased most of the properties on the magnificent harbor and paid lavishly for a slew of workmen to upgrade them.
Along with many houses that were beautifully renovated to house faculty and students, she purchased Captain Eels’ boat barn and had it converted into a concert hall.
She also had an outdoor amphitheater constructed surrounded by a park designed by the Olmsted firm (the same firm that designed Central Park in New York City).
Top image: Map showing the many waterfront properties in Rockport, the majority of which Mrs. Bok had acquired by the date of the map (1934). Bottom image: Captain Eels’ boat barn was purchased by Mrs. Bok, which she had converted into a concert hall. On right: Mrs. Bok had an outdoor amphitheater constructed surrounded by a park designed by the Charles Olmsted firm (the same firm that designed Central Park in New York).
Conductor Eugene Ormandy relaxing in Rockport, Maine with pianist Genia Nemenoff (left) and violinist, Lea Luboshutz (right).
The summer music colony bragged a remarkable faculty led by Josef Hofmann who had his own house there. Other distinguished musicians came and went, including conductors Fritz Reiner and Eugene Ormandy.
Top image: Pianists Eleanor and Vladimir Sokoloff, Rockport, Maine. Bottom image: Harpist Carlos Salzedo’s students in the amphitheater.
Pianists Eleanor and Vladimir Sokoloff originally came to Rockport as students. Both would join the Curtis faculty and Eleanor would continue teaching at Curtis until her 105th year.
Cellists Felix Salmond and Gregor Piatigorsky were part of the Maine faculty. Piatigorsky learned to drive while in Maine though initially he preferred going north from his house rather than south because, as the story’s told, he only felt confident in executing right-hand turns.
Harpist Carlos Salzedo had a beautiful house where he taught and often used Mrs. Bok’s amphitheater as the site for student concerts.
There was a dizzying array of student talent as well, including composers Gian-Carlo Menotti and Samuel Barber.
Cellists Leonard Rose and Samuel Mayes shared a garage apartment. Mayes, who would later become principal cellist of both the Boston Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra, claimed he was part Cherokee Indian. One night he managed an illegal hunting excursion and ended up in the dark mistaking a cow for a deer. His shot hit the cow in the udder and the poor animal had to be killed.
Mrs. Bok put up with the antics of her students and provided all kinds of largesse to them. It was, remarked one, as if a fairy godmother had come upon them and bestowed one’s every wish.
Mary Curtis Bok Zimbalist with Efrem Zimbalist on their wedding day in 1943. As of 1941, he had become Director of the Curtis Institute of Music that she had founded.
But all that cost a great deal. After World War II, Efrem Zimbalist, who had succeeded Josef Hofmann as Curtis’ Director and was now married to Mary Curtis Bok, was concerned about how much the colony was costing the Institute and he decided to cut back.
Though much of the property was sold off, several faculty members continued to come to Rockport, and bring their students for the summer (including Zimbalist), with Curtis often picking up the tab.
And it was some of those youngsters who convinced Mrs. Bok to provide money to restart the concert series. With a large donation from her, an organization was formed by these youngsters in 1960. Curtis students (and some faculty) provided the music. They called the organization Bay Chamber Concerts.
Since the Curtis Institute had sold Captain Eels’ Boat Barn, the musicians worked with the community to restore a local historic opera house where hundreds of Curtis musicians and others have performed ever since.
Indeed, Rockport is probably the only small town that can brag that every Director of the Curtis Institute of Music, from Josef Hofmann to Roberto Diaz, has performed there.
This summer, as we mark the 100th anniversary of the Curtis Institute of Music, we are also celebrating a new era in its founder’s musical vision for the small Maine community she loved. For the past year, an historic building in close proximity to her amphitheater has been under renovation. Now nearing completion, it will open in July 2024 as a music center featuring a lovely small performance hall and a music school with numerous teaching studios and chamber music rooms.
Left image: Program cover from first season of Bay Chamber Concerts in 1961 for which Curtis’ founder, Mary Curtis Bok Zimbalist, [1] was the honorary chair and patron. A quartet of Curtis students opened the series. Right image: The renovated Rockport Opera House built in 1891 became the place there Curtis students and faculty played.
This new community music center, nearing completion, will open during the summer of 2024. It will continue a Maine tradition established by Mary Louise Curtis Bok a hundred years ago.
Unlike Curtis’ educational model for Rockport from a century ago, the new center will not be limited to summer months nor will it offer a conservatory-type program. (Today, the United States has more than enough of those.) This building will house a year-round community-based program for students age 5 to 95 who simply love music. Those are the people we need to nurture if we want to rebuild audiences for serious music in the 21st century.
Indeed, Mary Louise Curtis Bok, herself established such a school in Philadelphia alongside her Institute which is now the largest of its kind in the US (the Settlement Music School). She cared deeply about fostering the love of music, however and wherever it might occur. Clearly, she would have approved of this continuation of her Maine legacy.
NOTE: I am grateful to the Curtis Institute of Music Archive for the use of many historical photographs.
[1] Mrs. Bok went by the name Mary Curtis Bok Zimbalist after her marriage to Efrem Zimbalist in 1943.