Juilliard School - History

History

In 1905, the Institute of Musical Art was initiated 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. At its formation, the Institute was located in Manhattan at Fifth Avenue and 12th Street. During its first year, the institute enrolled 500 students. It relocated during 1910 to Claremont Avenue in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. 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 East 52nd Street to start the Juilliard Graduate School. In 1926, it merged partially with the Institute of Musical Art with a common president, the Columbia University professor John Erskine. The schools had separate deans and 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 combined schools were named The Juilliard School of Music. The president of the school at that time was William Schuman, the first winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music. In 1951, the school added a dance division, directed by Martha Hill.

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 selected as president of The Juilliard School of Music during 1945, William Schuman created a new curriculum termed "The Literature and Materials of Music" (L&M) designed to be taught by composers. L&M was Schuman's 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. Many questioned the quality of L&M as a method to teach the fundamentals of music theory, ear training and history.

William Schuman resigned his job as president of Juilliard after being elected president of Lincoln Center during 1962. Peter Mennin, another composer with directorial experience at the Peabody Conservatory, was elected as his successor. Mennin made significant changes to the L&M program—- ending out ear training and music history and hiring the well known pedagogue Renée Longy to teach solfège. During 1968, Mennin hired John Houseman to manage a new Drama Division, and during 1969 oversaw Juilliard's relocation from Claremont Avenue to Lincoln Center and shortened its name to The Juilliard School.

Dr. Joseph Polisi became president of Juilliard during 1984 after Peter Mennin died. Polisi's many accomplishments include philanthropic successes, broadening of the curriculum and establishment of dormitories for Juilliard's students. During 2001, the school established a jazz performance training program. During September 2005, Colin Davis conducted an orchestra which 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.

During 1999, The Juilliard School was awarded the National Medal of Arts.