The Curtis Chamber Orchestra will perform at Walton Arts Center Tuesday night as part of the center's annual Artosphere Festival. It's a monthlong series of free or low-cost events highlighting art and nature throughout the region. The orchestra belongs to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, a private, renowned classical music conservatory with an admission rate of 4% and a student body of fewer than 200 people. Ania Lewis is a student and cellist at the Curtis Institute of Music, performing on tour with the chamber orchestra. She spoke with Ozarks at Large's Sophia Nourani ahead of Tuesday's performance to discuss her career in music and what's coming after graduation from Curtis.
Lewis was born in Lexington, Ky., but grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland. She first began playing the cello when she was 6 years old.
Lewis: I first got into cello because my mom has a family friend that's actually in the Cleveland Orchestra, and I went to their house for a family friend gathering or like a holiday or something, and I asked my mom for a cello the next Christmas. My mom played the piano growing up a little bit, but she didn't go into it seriously. After high school, there was an option of growing up playing piano as well, and I was never as interested in that. It's always been the cello. I studied with a few members of the Cleveland Orchestra growing up, and I joined the Young Artist program at the Cleveland Institute of Music when I was in high school. That is the program that made me really want to focus on performing as a career and going into music in my undergrad years. So I applied to Curtis and I got in. I knew that I wanted to come here if I was able to get in. And I've been here for five years now. I did my undergrad here and I did an extra year this past year, starting my master's.
Nourani: How old are you?
Lewis: I am 22 years old now.
Nourani: Congratulations for being so accomplished and dedicated to your craft at such a young age. You mentioned you started your undergraduate at Curtis. It looks like you joined around 2021, which might have been a weird time for music specifically with COVID. Did that impact how you managed things at school?
Lewis: It was definitely a different time for classical music. I remember coming to Curtis — my freshman year was the first year that everyone was back on campus after the pandemic. A lot of people were navigating the new rules that we had to manage, and just playing, especially in larger groups, and with the players that have to use their mouths for their instruments, and trying to figure out how we would be able to play in large groups again. My first year, there were a couple of orchestra concerts that would get cancelled or postponed because of safety reasons. I really tried to focus on taking advantage of the opportunities I could have playing with other people. As a string player, it was great to play in smaller groups like string quartets and piano trios. I'm very lucky that I was able to do that, but I also had a close group of friends in the dorms that I lived in my first year, and we were able to form that close connection with each other. I think that made it very special during that time.
Nourani: From Cleveland to Philadelphia — that's a bit of a move. Those are both pretty big cities, but with pretty specific identities. Did that impact your music playing at all?
Lewis: I grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland and I didn't really have much exposure to downtown city life before I moved to Philadelphia. It's definitely a different feel living right in the middle of a downtown city. I really love living in Philadelphia now, but it was an adjustment. I think just seeing so many different people and different forms of art — Philadelphia is very bustling in the art department and in many different forms of art — I kind of just took that all in. Walking around the streets of Philadelphia is one of my favorite things to do still. There are just lots of things to see and lots of people to talk to. And I met some of my best friends here.
Nourani: The Curtis Chamber Orchestra tour — tell me about that. What has it been like doing this so far? And it's a conductorless chamber orchestra. That's an interesting concept. How much does that change your process?
Lewis: For the tour coming up, we have a small group of around 15 to 20 people. And it is completely different than playing in a big symphony orchestra with 100, maybe 100-plus musicians. What is really special about this tour is that all of the musicians are put into a rotated seating arrangement, and so we all rotate around and different players get the opportunity to lead different pieces. It really gives us a greater sense of responsibility and leadership in rehearsals leading up to the tour. It really encourages everyone to speak up in rehearsals and voice their own opinions, instead of maybe having a conductor or a concertmaster pass back just one opinion or one interpretation of a piece. So it's really great to just talk about different interpretations or different opinions that people might have, which I really enjoy doing. And it's also very special to be able to play with two of our faculty members, President Roberto Díaz and Erin Keefe. They are both amazing musicians and so experienced in the chamber music world and orchestral world, and they're just fantastic role models and mentors to us all, but such great collaborators. They let us have those opinions and they really just create an environment to play together and have fun with it, which I think is really special.
Nourani: Do you have anything specific to say about the pieces you're going to be performing?
Lewis: I'm specifically looking forward to the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante that we're doing with President Díaz and Ms. Keefe. It's just a very fun and happy piece of music. I'm having a great time with people that I've made friends with here at Curtis that maybe I haven't gotten the chance to play with in a chamber group before. I'm just loving making eye contact with people in the small group and talking about it after a concert and being like, oh, this part was really special today. Just making these memories and these moments with people — I hope that comes across to the audiences as well in concert. I think that's something that's very special about a small group without a conductor, and something that we can all remember.
Nourani: Have you ever been to Arkansas before?
Lewis: No, it's not my first time. I was actually in Fayetteville in 2024 — I did a few performances at the Walton Arts Center for the Artosphere Festival Orchestra, and I just remember wandering around the town and exploring a little bit. I remember the audiences at the venue being so welcoming and friendly. So I'm really excited to be back, actually.
Nourani: You might have some exciting information about what's next for you personally?
Lewis: I started my master's degree here this year, but I've been taking professional orchestra auditions over the past two years or so, and I won the assistant principal cello spot in the Cincinnati Symphony back in January. So I'm starting in September and I'm really looking forward to that. It's close to home and I love Cincinnati as a city. I've met some of the orchestra members and they're very friendly and I'm just really looking forward to joining such an amazing group there.
Nourani: Is there anything else you want to add about yourself or about this tour?
Lewis: I'm very excited to be back. I know a lot of my student collaborators are looking forward to being on this Curtis on Tour experience. It's very different than any performances we do here in Philadelphia, and I think that it's very special to Curtis to have this touring opportunity. It really gives us a great opportunity to play the same program multiple times in different cities and just develop with the same group and the same pieces, which is something that not a lot of places have. So just really grateful that we're able to do this.
Ania Lewis is a student and cellist at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Lewis and the Curtis Chamber Orchestra will be at Walton Arts Center Tuesday night as part of the center's Artosphere Festival. More information at waltonartscenter.org. Now we have an excerpt of Lewis's graduation recital, recorded last year in the Field Concert Hall at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. This is "Romance" by Richard Strauss in F major, with Ania Lewis on cello and Marc Lifshitz on piano.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
