Joshua Stewart

Joshua Stewart, a tenor from New Orleans, who is a third year student at the Curtis Institute of Music, will also perform "Make them Hear You" from Ragtime.

Joshua Stewart, a tenor from New Orleans who is a third year student at the Curtis Institute of Music, will also perform "Make them Hear You" from Ragtime.

In addition, Zakes Mda will read a special poem written for the occasion, "Let Them Come with Rain."Mda is an acclaimed South African writer of plays, novels, and poems, who has won every major South African literary prize.He divides his time between South Africa and the United States, working as a professor of creative writing at Ohio University, a beekeeper in the Eastern Cape, a dramaturge at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg, and a director of the Southern African Multimedia AIDS Trust in Sophiatown, Johannesburg.

ON THE COVER: Curtis student Joshua Stewart in the role of Ruiz Alonso; middle, left to right: Curtis graduate Rachael Garcia and Curtis students Ashley Thouret, Karen Jesse, Sarah Shafer, Allison Sanders and Marquita Raley; bottom: Curtis student Katherine Lerner in the role of Federico Garcia Lorca in Curtis Opera Theatre’s (in association with Opera Company of Philadelphia and Kimmel Center Presents) production of Golijov’s Ainadamar, conducted by Corrado Rovaris and directed by Chas Rader-Shieber, with designs by David Zinn (sets), Richard St. Clair (costumes) and Mark Barton (lighting).