Column Name
Title
1935
March 7, the Juilliard Student Club sponsored what they described as an antiwar meeting at which Dr. Harry F. Ward of Union Theological Seminary addressed approximately 100 students on the topic “Is the U.S. Headed for War?”
Robin (Lawrence Avery, foreground) flees in fright as the mounted knight Sir Aubert (Elvin Campbell, left) grabs shepherdess Marion (Shirley Gatzert, right) in the U.S. premiere of Milhaud’s The Play of Robin and Marion. The 1952 production by the Juilliard Opera Theater featured sets by Frederick Kiesler and costumes by Freddie Wittop and Eileen Holding.
(Photo by George Cserna)Body
1942
March 14, Albert Stoessel led the Juilliard Orchestra in a Students’ Concerto Series program. Four Juilliard Graduate School students—pianists Maro Ajemian, Mary Gorin, and Leonid Hambro, and violinist Dorothy DeLay—performed concertos by Khachaturian, Mozart, Liszt, and Chopin. Ajemian, DeLay, and Hambro later joined the Juilliard faculty.
1952
March 23-30, the International Federation of Music Students’ sixth annual symposium of contemporary music convened at Juilliard. Speakers included John Cage, President William Schuman, faculty member Martha Graham, and future faculty member Gustave Reese. Performances were given by the Juilliard String Quartet, David Tudor, faculty members Lonny Epstein and Louis Persinger, the Juilliard Jazz Band, the Juilliard Orchestra conducted by Jean Morel, and the Juilliard Opera Theater, which presented the New York premiere of Stravinsky’s Mavra (a two-piano version by Soulima Stravinsky played by Jean Anderson Wentworth and Kenneth Wentworth) and the U.S. premiere of Milhaud’s The Play of Robin and Marion. Commissioned by Juilliard, Milhaud’s score was an adaptation of the 13th-century play, with dances and songs after Adam de la Halle. Felix Greissle moderated a panel discussion on “Opera in the U.S. Today and Tomorrow” with participants Marc Blitzstein, Aaron Copland, Gian Carlo Menotti, Douglas Moore, Virgil Thomson, and then-current or future faculty members Peter Herman Adler, Frederic Cohen, Norman Dello Joio (Diploma ’38, organ; Diploma ’42, composition), and Herbert Graf. The Federation was founded in 1946 by student composers from Juilliard, the Curtis Institute of Music, the Eastman School of Music, the New England Conservatory, the Royal Conservatory of Music of Toronto, and the Yale University School of Music.
1990
March 28, pianist Billy Taylor gave a presentation titled “Jazz, America’s Classical Music” in Paul Recital Hall.
