Hello! My name is Oscar, and I’m a jazz drummer who has recently moved from Melbourne to London to begin undergraduate jazz studies at the Royal Academy of Music (RAM). I am very grateful for the generous support provided by the Tait Performing Arts Association and the John Truscott Foundation, who have helped contribute towards my [...]
After all this time, I am very, VERY excited to be writing to you all again! Apologies that it has been so long. Currently it’s the evening of the second last day of Summer here in Philadelphia. My room this year has a view of my building’s terrace garden a few floors down and additionally of [...]
Dear Readers, Hello again! I hope you have all been well :) There have been some lovely days here in Philadelphia recently… and many not so lovely, rainy days… but it has honestly been making me feel as if I’m back home in Melbourne - which is a not-so-far-off dream given that on the 14th of [...]
Dear Readers, To those in Australia, I hope you have enjoyed your first week of Autumn - or as they say here, ‘Fall’! Finally, after months of snow and ice, Philadelphia has begun to warm up into Spring. In fact, the day that I’m writing this, we have a high of 22°c! I can finally open [...]
Hello readers! Apologies it has been such a long wait since my last post, but luckily I have loads to share :) Things have been busy here, not only in the performance space, but also as Curtis ramps up for Admission Season. Just this morning, we welcomed cellists from across the world for their first-round auditions. [...]
Curtains close on Semester 1 at Curtis - looking forward to Semester 2! (January 2026) Happy New Year!! While I’m writing this blog post I’m sitting at my family’s dining table, the back door is open and letting in some fresh air, and I’m in Australia of all places! Yet in just six days I will [...]
Rehearsing and Performing at Curtis (December 2025) It has officially been a week (and one day!) since my debut with Curtis Opera in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo. After a month’s rehearsal, we performed two sold-out shows on the 14th and 16th of November at the Princess Theatre, located inside the Philadelphia Film Society Centre. Involving almost the entire [...]
October at Curtis from Bella Despite my disbelief, today is the 11th of October! How time has flown by… it has been a little over a month since my first blog entry, and I must say I feel like a completely new person to the one I was when I arrived. I think most of the [...]
The day I’m writing this, the 6th of September, marks the end of my first week of classes here at the Curtis Institute of Music - and what a week it has been! While I will of course detail how wonderful these past few days have been, I should begin by telling you about the journey [...]
Clare Juan is graduating from her Bachelors (Hons) course from the Royal College of Music in London this July. Clare is very excited to share that in September she will begin a Masters of Performance at the college as a RCM Scholar! Clare is also very honoured to be loaned a cello from the college which [...]
