On any given day in spring, you may chance to hear the sound of music wafting from the windows of the building overlooking the east side of Rittenhouse Square. Stop a while and listen: one day soon that young musician, whose scales and arpeggios mingle with the birdsong in the square, may hold a principal chair in one of the world’s major symphony orchestras.

Built in 1924 at its current location, 18th and Locust, The Curtis Institute of Music remains true to the vision of its founder, Mary Louise Curtis Bok: to train exceptionally gifted vocalists and instrumentalists for careers at the highest professional level. To even be accepted at Curtis is an achievement reserved for young musicians possessed of that rare combination of extraordinary talent and extraordinary commitment. Currently, Curtis has a total of only 160 students, hailing from the U.S. and sixteen foreign countries - a typically small enrollment - which makes it all the more noteworthy that 17% of the principal chairs in America’s top 25 orchestras are held by Curtis graduates. Its alumni include such world-renowned talents as Leonard Bernstein, Samuel Barber, and Vincent Persichetti, whose contributions to 20th century music are undeniable. Others, like performer, conductor, and educator, Paul Bryan, are making an impact in the present day, right here in Philadelphia. Now serving as registrar at Curtis, Paul was gracious enough to meet with me in his office. I wanted to know more about his path: before, during, and after his time at Curtis. In many ways, it is probably not very different from that of his famous predecessors, and those who occupy its practice rooms today.

ARRIVAL

Paul Bryan arrived at Curtis in 1989 at the age of 18, trombone in hand, and already in an enviable position. He had been accepted to every music school to which he applied, including Juilliard, where he would have had the opportunity to study with Joe Alessi, the Principal Trombonist of the New York Philharmonic. For Paul though, the choice was easy. “Why study with Alessi,” Paul recalled thinking, “when I could study with the very same man who taught Alessi, along with so many of my other musical heroes?” Indeed, Paul seized the opportunity to study with Glenn Dodson, Principal Trombonist in the Philadelphia Orchestra since 1968, and a true teaching legend. It was an opportunity that Paul had worked hard to earn.

BEGINNINGS

Like most Curtis students, Paul started young. At the age of five he taught himself to read music on a recorder given to him by his mother, herself an accomplished flautist. At six, he took up the accordion, at which point his perfectionist tendencies began to emerge. These would serve him well when, a few years later, he discovered the trombone. At the age of 12, Paul attended a five-week summer music camp in Suwannee, Tennessee, an experience that solidified his devotion to the trombone. As a high school student in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Paul was practicing four to six hours every day, often starting at 5:30 in the morning. Obsessive? Maybe. But just about right for anyone wishing to end up in Mr. Dodson’s studio.

With such commitment to his instrument, Paul was caught off-guard by his first lesson from Mr. Dodson: “It’s not my job to make you a great trombone player,” said his new teacher. “It’s my job to make you a great musician.” It is a lesson Paul has carried with him to this day as a conductor and a performer, treating the trombone, or the ensemble he is conducting, as merely the medium with which to make great music.

CONDUCTING

By Paul’s third year at Curtis, the long hours in the practice room began to wear on him. It wasn’t that he no longer enjoyed playing the trombone, but, as he told me, “it began to feel like work.” At the same time, Paul discovered a new outlet for his musical talent. While playing in Curtis’s brass ensemble, Paul was inspired by the intensity and musicality with which Mr. Dodson led the group. Paul cut his practice sessions down to two or three hours a day, and began educating himself on the art of conducting. Between the conductors on Curtis’s faculty and the many distinguished guest conductors brought in by the school, Paul was able to learn from the very best. He played under the baton of Andre Previn; he noted the stylistic contrasts between Otto-Werner Mueller’s cerebral and analytical approach and Simon Rattle’s visual and physical involvement with the ensemble; he attended rehearsals for ensembles in which he was not even playing, just for the opportunity to watch a great conductor at work. Upon his graduation in 1993, it would not be long before he would put these lessons to use.

AFTER CURTIS

In the fifteen years since his graduation, Paul has distinguished himself as a performer, conductor, and educator. He has performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Delaware Symphony, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, and the Opera Company of Philadelphia, among others. He has also conducted such groups as the Rodney Mack Philadelphia Big Brass and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia wind and brass ensemble. But Paul finds his greatest pleasure in working with students. At the age of 22, he was hired as Director of Bands at St. Joseph’s Prep, a position he held for eight years. He has also conducted the Philadelphia All-City Concert Band, the CJMEA (New Jersey Region II) All-Region Orchestra, and The Curtis Institute of Music Brass and Percussion Ensemble, and he currently serves as the Artistic Director and Conductor of Bravo Brass, the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra brass ensemble.

For Paul, working with students allows him to be even more involved in the final product, the music that the audience hears on the night of the concert. “If a student performance comes off well,” Paul says, “you can feel really good about yourself, knowing you were a big part of getting the ensemble to that point.” Paul finds similar satisfaction in teaching private lessons. His trombone students have gone on to study at many of the finest conservatories in the US.

But Paul came away from Curtis with more than just a great education. It was there that he met his wife, Michelle Rosen, currently the principal bassoonist in the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. Paul and Michelle have been married for over ten years and have two sons, Joshua and Jeremy, who seem to have inherited their parents’ musical talent. Joshua, at 6, has already been playing violin for a year and a half. “It was entirely his own choice,” Paul tells me, adding that he’s beginning to notice certain perfectionist tendencies in him. “I don’t know where he got that from,” Paul says with a smile. Jeremy is only three, but he too has shown an interest in what you might call the family business.

As registrar at Curtis, Paul enjoys the opportunity to maintain personal contact with his alma mater. In addition to the usual registrar duties, like maintaining student records and transcripts, Paul is also the person in charge of organizing Curtis’s daily schedule. His office, just off the school’s beautiful main lobby, is a kind of “central command.” It is a fast-paced job, Paul tells me, and I’m able to see that for myself later in the morning.

At the conclusion of my interview with Paul, as I walked back out onto Locust Street, I realized I had forgotten my bag. As I returned to his office, not ten seconds after I had left it, I found a small line of Curtis students already assembled outside, and Paul at his desk in the middle of a business phone call. I am reminded of my final question to Paul: how he manages to find a balance between his personal life and all his various jobs. For Paul, the distinction is not as clear-cut. “Work is my release,” Paul tells me. Whereas some people relax by playing on the company softball team or hitting the golf course, Paul finds happiness and satisfaction in playing music, teaching, and conducting his various ensembles. “I don’t have to do these things, but I don’t think I would like the person I would be if I weren’t doing them.” I think I can speak for the hundreds, maybe thousands of students, whom Paul has educated and inspired over the past fifteen years, in saying I hope he never quits. Bernstein, Barber, and Bryan? It has a nice ring to it. There is no doubt that Philadelphia would be a far less musical place without the third one.