Juilliard School

views updated May 29 2018

Juilliard School. Amer. mus. coll. in NY. Named after Augustus D. Juilliard (b at sea, 1836; d NY, 1919), NY cotton merchant, who left around 20 million dollars for creation of Juilliard Musical Foundation, 1920. School founded as Juilliard Graduate Sch. 1924, entrance only by competitive exam. before entire faculty, each student having to re-qualify in this manner every year of their course. Merged with Inst. of Mus. Art (founded by F. Damrosch and J. Loeb in 1905) in 1946, the Inst. becoming the Undergraduate Sch. of the Juilliard, with Graduate Sch. retaining orig. identity. The composer William Schuman was pres. 1945–62, Peter Mennin 1962–83, Joseph W. Polisi from 1984. In Nov. 1969 the Sch. moved to its own building as a constituent part of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. This building has 4 auditoria, incl. opera th. Name changed from Juilliard School of Mus. to Juilliard Sch. because of est. of dance dept. in 1952 and drama division in 1968.