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For more than a century, The Juilliard School has been a leader in educating the world’s performing artists. It should come as no surprise that people from across the United States and around the globe call to ask how to establish a scholarship at the School. Very often we learn that the scholarship donor has never attended Juilliard (or perhaps even been to New York), but feels inspired to help the musicians, dancers, and actors studying here, sometimes in salute to a beloved teacher or renowned performing artist.
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Recently, a generous gift came from Canadian resident Judith Harris to endow the Adele Marcus Piano Scholarship. Adele Marcus, a Juilliard alumna, served on Juilliard’s piano faculty from 1954 to 1990, and counted Stephen Hough, David Dubal, Cipa Dichter, and Horacio Gutiérrez among her students. Though Ms. Harris did not attend Juilliard, she had observed Marcus’s master classes as a student at the Interlochen Center for the Arts, the Aspen Music Festival, and the University of Western Ontario, and found her teaching inspired. With her generous contribution, Ms. Harris has provided a meaningful tribute to a teacher she greatly admired, as well as lasting support for young pianists who come to study at Juilliard.
With similar inspiration, additional scholarship gifts have come to Juilliard from other new friends of the School. The Bruno Raikin Memorial Scholarship in Piano was established by Annette Rabin in honor of her uncle, a pianist of Baltic and South African background, long esteemed as a performer and teacher. Among his many accomplishments, Raikin served as Paul Robeson’s accompanist in England.
Linda Frankenbach and Robin Jurechko have memorialized their uncle and father (respectively) by establishing the George Courtney Todd Violin Scholarship. Mr. Todd played and taught violin throughout his long life, and was an inspiration to many.
Juilliard faculty have inspired several new awards this year. Dirk Robinson, a California-based singer who studied in Italy with Juilliard emeritus faculty member Daniel Ferro, took inspiration from that experience and established a new award for singers, the Dirk Robinson Scholarship. Arizona arts patrons Jerry and Peggy Schuld established the Schuld-Jacobs Organ Scholarship in honor of Paul Jacobs, chair of Juilliard’s organ department and a renowned organist. The LLL Foundation saluted Sharon Isbin, chair of Juilliard’s guitar department and an international performing and recording artist, by creating the LLL Foundation Guitar Fellowship, an award for Ms. Isbin’s students.
The American Turkish Society has established the Ahmet Ertegun Memorial Scholarship. The Estelle Jasper Scholarship, a dance award, was begun by Susan Feldman in memory of her mother, who was a longtime dance patron. Also designated for dancers, the Peter J. Frenkel Foundation Scholarship in Dance honors Frenkel, another faithful dance enthusiast.
Juilliard is pleased to welcome several new endowed awards. Celia Ascher, a longtime student in Juilliard’s Evening Division, has endowed the Celia and Joseph Ascher Fund for Piano with a generous contribution. This new fund will provide resources for piano scholarships and for special projects within the piano department.
The Mari Brown Scholarship was established by Dr. Walter Brown, a member of the Brown University medical school faculty. Dr. Brown honored his mother, Marie (as she was known at school) Shapin Brown, who studied at Juilliard in the 1930s.
The Pearl Bernstein Scholarship, an endowed award for dancers, was established by Ms. Bernstein’s sisters, loyal Juilliard patrons who had previously endowed an award for musicians.
Since 1985 the Janet Comey Foundation has funded an annual scholarship for Juilliard’s organists in the name of Vernon de Tar, who was a member of Juilliard’s faculty from 1947 to 1982. The foundation has just made a large gift, permanently endowing the Vernon de Tar Scholarship. Juilliard organ alumni, particularly those who studied with de Tar, will raise funds to further enrich this award.
For several years in the 1990s, Martin Kaltman, a Long Island businessman and arts patron, supported a music scholarship at Juilliard, endowing the award in 1997. Now building on the generosity of their late father, Eric Kaltman and his sister Gail Bates recently made a generous scholarship gift, strengthening the award and renaming it the Helen and Martin Kaltman Scholarship. The scholarship will assist two pianists each year.
The Levien Foundation, which endowed the Richard R. Levien Scholarship in Piano at Juilliard in 1981, made a major gift to further strengthen the award, following the death of Mrs. Francis S. Levien.
As bequests to Juilliard in recent months have created new scholarships, we are reminded of the generosity of those individuals who include the School in their estate planning. The Jesse A. Ceci Scholarship, an unrestricted award, has been established with a gift from the estate of Ceci, a Juilliard violin alumnus who served as concertmaster of the Colorado Symphony. The Lolita Cabrera Gainsborg Scholarship, a piano award endowed by the estate of Alice Mahler, memorializes Gainsborg, a composer and pianist, and was made possible by her daughter. The Dora L. Foster Scholarship will be awarded to students in the Vocal Arts Department. Cellists will benefit from the Lillie Chasnoff Miller Scholarship, endowed by the estate of Julie Rachel Miller. The Irving Billig Scholarship is an unrestricted endowed award that will be awarded to dancers, actors, and musicians.
In thoughtful tribute to a recent alumnus who died suddenly at the threshold of his career, friends and family of the late Paul Vinton (B.M. ’06, guitar) established the Paul Vinton II Jazz Guitar Scholarship. Another tragic loss inspired the establishment of the Jared Nathan Scholarship. Jared, a Drama Division student, died in 2006 in a car accident. Much of the support for this drama scholarship came from the fund-raising marathon that Jared’s classmate Rob Thompson, who graduates this month, ran in Connecticut this past fall.
The Juilliard School is very grateful for the scholarships and awards that alumni and friends have generously given this year. Through their generosity, and support from hundreds of other faithful donors, Juilliard is able to extend financial assistance to students who could not attend without scholarship help. Fully 90 percent of Juilliard’s students require financial aid to meet the tuition, which is $28,640 for the 2008-09 academic year.
The School always welcomes the opportunity to discuss ways to support our educational and artistic activities through a variety of programs including unrestricted gifts, currently funded or endowed scholarships, special project support, bequests, and other planned gifts. For more information about contributing to Juilliard, please call the Office of Development and Public Affairs at (212) 799-5000, ext. 278, or visit our Web site at juilliard.edu/giving.
