| The Juilliard School | |
| Image Upright: | .53 |
| Founder: | Frank Damrosch |
| Type: | Private conservatory |
| Accreditation: | MSCHE[1] |
| Endowment: | $1.38 billion (2021)[2] |
| President: | Damian Woetzel |
| City: | New York City |
| State: | New York |
| Country: | United States |
| Campus: | Small Urban |
| Enrollment: | ~950 college and ~290 pre-college |
| Undergrad: | ~600 students (2020) |
| Postgrad: | ~350 students (2020) |
| Academic Staff: | ~350 (2021)[3] |
| Mascot: | Penguin |
| Colors: | red and blue[4] |
| Logo Upright: | .85 |
The Juilliard School is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Founded by Frank Damrosch as the Institute of Musical Art in 1905, the school later added dance and drama programs and became the Juilliard School, named after its principal benefactor Augustus D. Juilliard.
The school is composed of three primary academic divisions: dance, drama, and music, of which the last is the largest and oldest. Juilliard offers degrees for undergraduate and graduate students and liberal arts courses, non-degree diploma programs for professional artists, and musical training for pre-college students. Juilliard has a single campus at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, comprising numerous studio rooms, performance halls, a library with special collections, and a dormitory. It has one of the lowest acceptance rates of schools in the United States. With a total enrollment of about 950 students, Juilliard has several student and faculty ensembles that perform throughout the year, most notably the Juilliard String Quartet.[5] [6]
Juilliard alumni have won 105 Grammy Awards, 62 Tony Awards, 47 Emmy Awards, and 24 Academy Awards, including two alumni with EGOTs. Musicians from Juilliard have pursued careers as international virtuosos and concertmasters of professional symphony orchestras. Its alumni and faculty include more than 16 Pulitzer Prize and 12 National Medal of Arts recipients.[7]
In 1905, the Institute of Musical Art (IMA), Juilliard's predecessor institution, was founded by Frank Damrosch, a German-American conductor and godson of Franz Liszt, 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.[8] Chartered by the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York, the institute became one of first endowed music schools in the US, with significant funding provided by philanthropist and banker James Loeb.[9]
Damrosch and Loeb's mission was to establish a musical institution with high standards of teaching and learning that would incorporate a unified pedagogy and develop a "true musical culture among all classes". Accordingly, the school would rely on its endowment to ensure the quality of instruction was independent of students' financial status.
The Institute of Musical Art opened in the former Lenox Mansion, Fifth Avenue and 12th Street, on October 11, 1905. When the school opened, most teachers were European; however, only Americans were allowed to study at the institute. Although orchestras were exclusively male, women made up most of the student population. The school had 467 students in the first year, but the enrollment soon doubled in size over the following years. Five years after its inception, the institute moved to 120 Claremont Avenue in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan onto a property purchased from Bloomingdale Insane Asylum near the Columbia University campus.[10]
In 1919, a wealthy textile merchant named Augustus D. Juilliard died and left a vast sum of money for the advancement of music in his will, which set up the Juilliard Musical Foundation (JMF) a year later as one of its primary beneficiaries.[11] Under Eugene Noble as executive secretary, the foundation purchased the Vanderbilt family guesthouse at 49 E. 52nd Street, and established a separate new music school, the Juilliard Graduate School (JGS), in 1924.[12]
After much discussion, the Juilliard School of Music was eventually created in 1926 through a merger of the Institute and the Graduate School. The JGS moved from E 52nd Street to 130 Claremont Avenue next to the IMA in 1931.[13] The two schools had the same board of directors and president but maintained their distinct identities.[14] Columbia University Professor John Erskine became the first president of the two institutions (1928–1937).[15] Frank Damrosch continued as the Institute's dean, and the Australian pianist and composer Ernest Hutcheson was appointed dean of the Graduate School. Hutcheson later served as president from 1937 to 1945.[16]
Juilliard's third president, William Schuman, an American composer and the first Pulitzer Prize for Music winner, led the school from 1945 to 1961 and brought about several significant changes to raise the school's academic standards. In 1946, Schuman completely consolidated the Institute of Musical Art and the Juilliard Graduate School to form a single institution and created the Juilliard String Quartet as the school's main quartet-in-residence.[17] During his tenure, Schuman cut down enrollment by more than half, eliminated the Juilliard Summer School and Music Education Program,[18] and opened Juilliard's admission to non-Americans.
Schuman discontinued the Theory Department and initiated a new curriculum called the Literature and Materials of Music (L&M), which began in 1947–1948, and was based on the assumption that musical theory education "should transfer theoretical knowledge into practical performance." Designed for composers to teach, the more practical-orientated curriculum would provide an overview of the "literature of music". L&M was a reaction against more formal theory and ear training, and as a result did not have a formal structure and allowed for more flexibility.
Schuman established the school's Dance Department under Martha Hill's direction in 1951, intending that students in the program would receive an education in dance, choreography, and music. The department, later renamed the Dance Division, offered performance opportunities through the Juilliard Dance Theatre (1954–1958) and later the Juilliard Dance Ensemble (founded), which often collaborated with the Juilliard Orchestra. For many years, the Juilliard Dance Department shared facilities with the School of American Ballet.}
In 1957, after two years of deliberation, the Juilliard School of Music board announced that the school would relocate from upper Manhattan to the future Lincoln Center.[19] The Lincoln Center would cover the costs for the construction project, but the school would have to instruct exclusively advanced students, introduce a drama program and cut its Preparatory School. Juilliard's new building at Lincoln Center would be designed by Pietro Belluschi with associates Eduardo Catalano and Helge Westermann. The Juilliard School building at Lincoln Center was completed on October 26, 1969, officially opening with a dedication ceremony and concert. With Lincoln Center's prestige came a newly elevated status for the Juilliard School.[20]
William Schuman assumed the presidency of Lincoln Center in 1962 and composer Peter Mennin succeeded him.[21] Mennin made substantial changes to the L&M program—ending ear training and music history, adding performances and composition in class, and hiring the well-known pedagogue Renée Longy to teach solfège. Mennin organized several new programs, such as Juilliard's Master Class Program and Doctoral Music Program.[22] Under Mennin, Juilliard's international reputation grew as several alumni won competitive international competitions.