Curtis on Tour, an ensemble of winds and strings from the Curtis Institute of Music, will be the next guests of the Music Series at Akin at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 15. Curtis on Tour features extraordinary emerging professional artists performing alongside celebrated faculty and alumni.

For more than 10 years, Curtis on Tour artists and ensembles have delighted audiences around the globe with performances that are “exhilarating from beginning to end” (Washington Post).

Renowned violinist Erin Keefe, concertmaster of the Minnesota Orchestra and Curtis faculty member, joins conductor, clarinetist, and composer Osmo Vänskä to lead the Curtis on Tour group.

Keefe is the winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, the Pro Musicis International Award, and numerous international competitions. She has appeared as soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra, New Mexico Symphony, New York City Ballet Orchestra, Korean Symphony Orchestra, and other orchestras around the world. She has given recitals throughout the United States, Austria, Italy, Germany, Korea, Poland, Finland, Japan and Denmark.

Vänskä is Conductor Laureate of the Minnesota Orchestra and was music director of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra from 2020-2023. He began his career as a clarinetist and is the recipient of a Royal Philharmonic Society Award, the Finlandia Foundation’s Arts and Letters award, and the Pro Finlandia medal awarded to him by the State of Finland. He holds honorary doctorates from the Curtis Institute of Music, and the universities of Glasgow and Minnesota, and he was named Musical America’s 2005 Conductor of the Year. In 2013, he received the Annual Award from the German Record Critics’ Award Association for his involvement in BIS’s recordings of the complete works by Sibelius.

The program for this concert is built around the octet version of Sibelius’s tone poem “En Saga” and features classics by Mozart, alongside early 20th-century works such as Dohnányi’s string trio, Serenade in C major, and Schulhoff’s fiery, folk-influenced Concertino for flute, viola, and double bass.

The Curtis Institute offers merit-based full-tuition scholarships to musically gifted students. It will celebrate its 100-year anniversary next year. Curtis alumni have gone on to receive Pulitzer Prizes, Guggenheim Fellowships, and Avery Fisher Awards, and perform with symphonies and musical establishments around the world. Grounded in Curtis’s “learn by doing” philosophy and steeped in the school’s distinguished history of artistic excellence, this innovative global touring initiative is an integral component of a Curtis education. Curtis on Tour is the Nina von Maltzahn Global Touring Initiative of the Curtis Institute of Music.

The concert is sponsored by the Perkins-Prothro Foundation and Mrs. Dale Prothro with the Lamar D. Fain College of Fine Arts at MSU. The series debuted in spring 2012 and has since hosted many notable classical musicians.

Tickets may be purchased by contacting the MSU Music Department at 940-397-4267, or visiting msufineartstickets.com. Mail cash or check payments to Music Series at Akin, MSU Department of Music, 3410 Taft Blvd., Wichita Falls, Texas 76308. General admission tickets are $25 for each performance or $40 for season tickets. Tickets for senior citizens and military are $23 for each or $36 for season tickets. Tickets for MSU faculty and staff are $15 or $24 for season tickets.