Playwrights program co-director Christopher Durang played Vanya in the Bucks County Playhouse run of his own Tony-award winning Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike in July. Mahira Kakkar (Group 33) also appeared in the production.

Organ faculty chair Paul Jacobs was featured in the May-June issue of the Yale alumni magazine; the article was called “The Radical Virtuoso.”

Evening Division faculty member Julie Jordan’s (MM ’83, piano) Summer Sunrise festival took place in June at Steinway Hall and other venues. Participants included Marion Feldman (BM ’60, MM ’62, cello) and Adela Pena (BM ’84, MM ’85, violin). In March, the New York Concerti Sinfonietta, of which Jordan is artistic director, gave a concert at the Church of St. Joseph. Paul Hostetter (MM ’89, percussion) conducted the orchestra and winners of Jordan’s Shining Stars International Concerto Competition.

In June, faculty member Choong Mo Kang, Jon Kimura Parker (BM and MM ’81, DMA ’89, piano), and Orli Shaham (Pre-College ’93; BCJE ’97, piano) were adjudicators for the first Cliburn International Junior Piano Competition and Festival, in Fort Worth, Tex.

Dance faculty member Joe Lanteri was one of six people to receive Dance Studio Life Magazine’s generous heart awards. He was recognized for his work with and creation of the New York City Dance Alliance Foundation, which has facilitated more than $8 million in scholarships since 2010. 

In May, Music Theory and Analysis faculty member Ray Lustig (MM ’05, DMA ’10, composition) released his debut solo album, Figments, an EP-length set of pieces for guitar duo performed by Duo Noire.

In September, Laura Marks (Playwrights ’12), who’s the Playwrights program administrator and literary manager, will receive the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award: Emerging American Playwright.

In May, clarinet faculty member Anthony McGill was named the principal clarinetist of the New York Philharmonic; he’s on leave from the Metropolitan Opera, where he’s been co-principal clarinetist since 2004. The Phil position has been open since former faculty member Stanley Drucker, who held the post from 1948 to 2009, retired. In June, McGill released a new album, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Clarinet Quintet in A Major, K. 581; Johannes Brahms: Clarinet Quintet in B Minor, Op. 115 (Cedille Records).

In May, Pre-College guitar faculty member Tali Roth (MM ’93, guitar) played in Retrospectiva, a dance show of Flamenco and Spanish classical music by Gabriela Granados presented by the American Bolero Dance Company at Tony Bennett Concert Hall in Queens. At the New York Guitar Seminar at Mannes, which took place in June, she played a recital and conducted a master class.

Joel Sachs spoke about his biography of Henry Cowell in May at the Royal College of Music, London. In July, he gave a concert at the Banff Centre summer music program that featured Schnittke’s Concerto Grosso No. 1 and a new piece by Eugene Astapov (MM ’13, composition).

Death and Birth by Pre-College faculty member Noam Sivan (DMA ’10, composition) was given its premiere in June in Tel Aviv by the Tel Aviv Soloists Ensemble, singers Inas Masalha and Einat Aronstein, and Sivan at the piano. The text, in Hebrew and Arabic, comes from 25 ancient and contemporary sources. 

Jazz faculty member Steve Turre played trombone and seashells with Elio Villafranca and the Jass Syncopators at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola in June.

In the spring, Vocal Arts faculty member Stephen Wadsworth directed his own translations of Beaumarchais’s The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro at McCarter Theater in Princeton, N.J. He also directed Beethoven’s Fidelio at the Santa Fe Opera this summer.

In May, faculty member Carol Wincenc (MM ’72, flute) won the National Society of Arts and Letters gold medal for lifetime achievement. Wincenc and oboe visiting faculty member Linda Strommen were among the judges for the society’s woodwind competition, at which first-year master’s oboist Julia DeRosa (Pre-College ’09; BM ’13) won first prize. Named after former Juilliard president Peter Mennin, the society’s prize honors outstanding achievement in music. Anna Brumbaugh (MM ’13, clarinet) took second place. 

Jazz faculty member Ben Wolfe’s new CD, From Here I See (MaxJazz), was reviewed in the May issue of Downbeat.

Staff

Juilliard’s president, Joseph W. Polisi, was awarded an honorary doctorate at Yale’s 313th commencement, in May.

Students

First-year master’s student Jay Campbell (BM ’12, cello) performed composition faculty member Jonathan Dawe’s (MM ’91, DMA ’95, composition) Cello Sonata with Stephen Gosling (BM ’93, MM ’94, DMA ’00, piano) at the Italian Academy at Columbia University in May. Later that month, Campbell also played Cantantes Metallis by David Fulmer (MM ’06, DMA ’11, composition) at New York City’s Tenri Cultural Institute.

In June, incoming B.C.J.E. vibraphonist Jake Chapman was one of nine musicians to win the Yamaha Young Performing Artists award.

In December, first-year dancer Joshua Guillemot-Rodgerson had the lead role in the Marlborough (New Zealand) Dance Center’s production of The Nutcracker.

Four freshmen are among this year’s Presidential Scholars in the Arts. They are pianist Anna Han, jazz trombonist Coleman Hughes, dancer Michael Stromile, and singer Thomas West. 

First-year master’s students Jossalyn Jensen (viola) and Yuebing Lin (piano) received Jack Kent Cooke Foundation’s 2014 Graduate Arts Award.

In June, Pre-College student Jun Hwi Cho won the New York International Piano Competition.

On October 12, the New Albany (Ohio) Symphony Orchestra will present world premiere of a piece by second-year composition student Jake Landau as well as Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto played by second-year violinist Ariel Horowitz. The concert will be conducted by the orchestra’s music director, Luis Biava (BM ’80, MM ’81, cello). Also on the program will be Psalm 126 by Philip Glass (Diploma ’60, MS ’62, composition).

Fourth-year composition student Aaron Severini wrote music for Passe-Partout, a new dance app for iPad that was released in June.

In May, Pre-College student Benjamin P. Wenzelberg received one of eight BMI Student Composer Awards; at 14, he was the youngest winner in the group.

In April, doctoral student Shen Yiwen’s (MM ’12, composition) hourlong ballet Hamlet was premiered in Beijing by the National Ballet of China.

Trustees

Trustee Joan Harris received the National Medal of the Arts from President Obama at the White House in July.