Juilliard School

Columbia University English professor and first president of Juilliard, John Erskine

In 1905, the Institute of Musical Art, Juilliard's predecessor institution, was founded by Frank Damrosch, the godson of Franz Liszt and head of music education for New York City's public schools, on the premise that the United States did not have a premier music school and too many students were going to Europe to study music. In 1919, a wealthy textile merchant named Augustus Juilliard died and left the school in his will the largest single bequest for the advancement of music at that time. In 1968, the school's name was changed from the Juilliard School of Music to The Juilliard School to reflect its broadened mission to educate musicians, directors, and actors.[5]

The Institute of Musical Art opened in the former Lenox Mansion, Fifth Avenue and 12th Street, on October 11, 1905. It moved in 1910 to 120 Claremont Avenue in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, onto a property purchased from Bloomingdale Insane Asylum near the Columbia University campus.[6] In 1920, the Juilliard Foundation was created, named after textile merchant Augustus D. Juilliard, who bequeathed a substantial amount of money for the advancement of music in the United States. In 1924, the foundation purchased the Vanderbilt family guesthouse at 49 E. 52nd Street, and established the Juilliard Graduate School.[7] In 1926, the Juilliard School of Music was created through a merger of the Institute of Musical Art and the Juilliard Graduate School. The two schools shared a common board of directors and president (Columbia University professor John Erskine) but retained their distinct identities. The conductor and music-educator Frank Damrosch continued as the Institute's dean, and the Australian pianist and composer Ernest Hutcheson was appointed dean of the Graduate School. In 1937, Hutcheson succeeded Erskine as president of the two institutions, a job he held until 1945.

In 1946, the Institute of Musical Art and the Juilliard Graduate School completely merged to form a single institution.[8] The president of the school at that time was William Schuman, the first winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music.

Alice Tully Hall in the Juilliard School building

William Schuman graduated from Columbia's Teachers College (BS 1935, MA 1937) and attended the Juilliard Summer School in 1932, 1933 and 1936. While attending Juilliard Summer School, he developed a personal dislike for traditional music theory and ear training curricula, finding little value in counterpoint and dictation. Soon after being appointed as president of the Juilliard School of Music in 1945, Schuman created a new curriculum called the Literature and Materials of Music (L&M), designed for composers to teach. L&M was a reaction against more formal theory and ear training, and as a result did not have a formal structure. The general mandate was "to give the student an awareness of the dynamic nature of the materials of music." The quality and degree of each student's education in harmony, music history, or ear training was dependent on how each composer-teacher decided to interpret this mandate.

In 1946, the Juilliard String Quartet was created by Schuman as a resident ensemble at the school, and it quickly established an international reputation as one of the most notable classical music groups in the United States. That year, the school had more than 1,800 students, with more than 500 supported by the G.I. Bill.[9] Two years later, the number was close to 1,100 students in total.[10]

In 1951, Schuman established the dance division of the school under the direction of Martha Hill.[5] In 1957 after months of meetings with various organizations and individuals, it was announced that the Juilliard School of Music will relocate from upper Manhattan to the future Lincoln Center.[11] It was also announced that upon the school's eventual relocating, it will add a drama division.[11] Juilliard's new building at Lincoln Center was designed by Pietro Belluschi with associates Eduardo Catalano y Helge Westermann.[11] The Center would cover the costs for the construction project and Juilliard would be changed with renting the space.[11]

The Juilliard School

William Schuman was elected president of Lincoln Center in 1962 and Peter Mennin, another composer with directorial experience at the Peabody Conservatory, was elected as his successor.[12] Mennin made significant changes to the L&M program—ending ear training and music history and hiring the well known pedagogue Renée Longy to teach solfège. In 1968, Mennin hired John Houseman to manage the new Drama Division, and in 1969 oversaw Juilliard's relocation from Claremont Avenue to Lincoln Center. The School's name was changed to The Juilliard School to reflect its broadened mission to educate musicians, directors, and actors.[5] On October 26, 1969, the dedication ceremony for the new building at Lincoln Center included a concert at Alice Tully Hall (built into the Juilliard School) with the Juilliard Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski and Jean Paul Morel, and with soloists Itzhak Perlman, Shirley Verrett, and Van Cliburn.[13]

Joseph W. Polisi became president of Juilliard in 1984 after the death of Peter Mennin.

During the early 1990s, there were many budget cuts in music education throughout public schools in New York, most of which served underrepresented communities. In 1991, Polisi had the idea of creating the Music Advancement Program (MAP) to help students affected by the budget cuts. That year, 40 students from across Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx successfully auditioned and were chosen to participate in the program.[14] Like the pre-college division, it is a Saturday program. Many other changes took place in the years under Polisi. Between 1990 and 1993, individual departments for all instruments and voice were established, the Merideth Wilson Residence Hall was built next to the school, salaries for teachers were increased, and the school hoped to accept fewer people and eventually cut 100 students to allow for more funding.[15]

In 1999, the Juilliard School was awarded the National Medal of Arts.[16]

In 2001, the school established a jazz performance training program. In September 2005, Colin Davis conducted an orchestra that combined students from the Juilliard and London's Royal Academy of Music at the BBC Proms, and during 2008 the Juilliard Orchestra embarked on a successful tour of China, performing concerts as part of the Cultural Olympiad in Beijing, Suzhou, and Shanghai under the expert leadership of Maestro Xian Zhang.

In 2006, Juilliard received a trove of precious music manuscripts from board chair and philanthropist Bruce Kovner. The collection includes autograph scores, sketches, composer-emended proofs and first editions of major works by Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Chopin, Schubert, Liszt, Ravel, Stravinsky, Copland, and other masters of the classical music canon. Many of the manuscripts had been unavailable for generations. Among the items are the printer's manuscript of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, complete with Beethoven's handwritten amendments, that was used for the first performance in Vienna in 1824; Mozart's autograph of the wind parts of the final scene of The Marriage of Figaro; Beethoven's arrangement of his monumental Große Fuge for piano four hands; Schumann's working draft of his Symphony No. 2; and manuscripts of Brahms's Symphony No. 2 and Piano Concerto No. 2. The entire collection has since been digitized and can be viewed online.[17] In 2010, philanthropist James S. Marcus donated $10 million to the school to establish the Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts at the school.[18]

Tianjin Juilliard School

On September 28, 2015, the Juilliard School announced a major expansion into Tianjin during a visit by China's first lady, Peng Liyuan, the institution's first such full-scale foray outside the United States.[19] The school opened in 2020 and offers a Master of Music degree program.[20][21]

In May 2017, retired New York City Ballet principal dancer Damian Woetzel was named president, replacing Joseph W. Polisi.[22]

In June 2021, members of the student group The Socialist Penguins organized a protest against rising tuition costs after claiming that they "weren't being listened to" when meeting with president and provost about the tuition fees.[23][24] In September, the school's Evening Division was renamed to Juilliard Extension which would broaden to offer programs in person and online.[25] In December of the same year, a $50 million gift was given to the school's Music Advancement Program to help students of underrepresented backgrounds.[26]

The Pre-College Division teaches students enrolled in elementary, junior high, and high school. The Pre-College Division is conducted every Saturday from September to May in the Juilliard Building at Lincoln Center.[40]

All students study solfège and music theory in addition to their primary instrument. Vocal majors must also study diction and performance. Similarly, pianists must study piano performance. String, brass and woodwind players, as well as percussionists, also participate in orchestra. The pre-college has two orchestras, the Pre-College Symphony (PCS) and the Pre-College Orchestra (PCO). Placement is by age and students may elect to study conducting, chorus, and chamber music.

The Pre-College Division began as the Preparatory Centers (later the Preparatory Division), part of the Institute of Musical Art since 1916. The Pre-College Division was established in 1969 with Katherine McC. Ellis as its first director. Olegna Fuschi served as director from 1975 to 1988. The Fuschi/Mennin partnership allowed the Pre-College Division to thrive, affording its graduates training at the highest artistic level (with many of the same teachers as the college division), as well as their own commencement ceremony and diplomas. In addition to Fuschi, directors of Juilliard's Pre-College Division have included composer Dr. Andrew Thomas. The current director of the Pre-College Division is Yoheved Kaplinsky.

The Music Technology Center at the Juilliard School was created in 1993 to provide students with the opportunity to use digital technology in the creation and performance of new music. Since then, the program has expanded to include a wide offering of classes such as, Introduction to Music Technology, Music Production, Film scoring, Computers In Performance and an Independent Study In Composition.[41]

In 2009, the Music Technology Center moved to a new, state of the art facility that includes a mix and record suite and a digital "playroom" for composing and rehearsing with technology. Together with the Willson Theater, the Music Technology Center is the home of interdisciplinary and electro-acoustic projects and performances at the Juilliard School.

The Juilliard Electric Ensemble was created in 2003 to provide students from all three of Juilliard's divisions (dance, drama, and music) with an opportunity to use new technology in the creation and performance of interactive and multi-disciplinary work.

In past performances, the Juilliard Electric Ensemble has used interactive technology to expand the range of their instruments, control audio and visual elements with electronic tools, shape video and projection design in real-time by moving through a virtual field, and interact with artists and computers around the world via the web.

Since its debut, the Electric Ensemble has performed works by over 50 composers including Joan La Barbara, Kenji Bunch, Eric Chasalow, Sebastian Currier, Avner Dorman, Jonathan Harvey, Jocelyn Pook, Steve Reich, Daniel Bernard Roumain, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Morton Subotnick, Alejandro Viñao, Jacob ter Veldhuis, David Wallace, Mark Wood, and Peter Wyer.