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Dorothy DeLay Centennial

Dorothy DeLay and her husband, Edward Newhouse, at home with their cats in 1979.

 (Photo by Courtesy of the Juilliard Archives)

This month marks the centennial of famed violin teacher Dorothy DeLay, who was on the faculty of Juilliard's Regular Division and Pre-College Division for more than half a century. She also directed the Starling-DeLay Institute of Violin Studies (see Summer Programs box on Page 3). Among her students are many celebrated performers, including faculty members Itzhak Perlman (Pre-College '63; '68) and Cho-Liang Lin (Pre-College '77; Diploma '81) as well as Anne Akiko Meyers (Pre-College '87; Certificate '90), Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg (Pre-College '78; Diploma '80, Professional Studies '82), Shlomo Mintz (Diploma '79), Nigel Kennedy ('77), Robert McDuffie (Pre-College '76; Diploma '81), Sarah Chang (Pre-College '99), Mark Kaplan (Pre-College '69; MM '76), Rachel Lee (Pre-College '06), Midori (Pre-College '87), Gil Shaham (Pre-College '89; Certificate '90), and Kyoko Takezawa ('89).

Dorothy DeLay with Cho-Liang Lin and Sandra Rivers

Dorothy DeLay with her then-student Cho-Liang Lin and alumna Sandra Rivers at Juilliard in 1979.

(Photo by Evelyn Floret for People Weekly, Time Inc.)

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Born in Medicine Lodge, Kan., on March 31, 1917, DeLay attended Oberlin College, Michigan State University, and Juilliard. She was enrolled in the special studies program of the Institute of Musical Art, Juilliard's predecessor institution, during the 1937–38 academic year and studied at the Juilliard Graduate School with Hans Letz from 1938 to 1942. She joined the faculty in 1948, teaching until she died, on March 24, 2002.

The Library and Archives will celebrate DeLay's 100th birthday with an exhibition of materials from her personal papers, which Juilliard received as a bequest from her family in 2003. The exhibition will open in March and remain on display through the end of the semester.

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