James DePreist, director of conducting and orchestral studies, was appointed artistic advisor to the Pasadena Symphony and Pops in June. DePreist will advise the ensemble on choosing guest conductors for the 2010-11 season, as it searches for a new music director. In addition, he will conduct the symphony in two concerts in October, including the first performance in the ensemble’s new venue, the Ambassador Auditorium, on October 23. He is expected to continue his role as artistic advisor during the 2011-12 season.     

A new percussion concerto by Eric Ewazen (MM ’78, DMA ’80, composition), Literature of Materials and Music and Pre-College composition faculty member, was premiered by Evelyn Glennie in Glasgow on June 22. The work, which was commissioned by Glennie, is titled Songs to the Banks of Ayr and is performed in four movements, each set to a poem by Robert Burns.     

Alan Gilbert (MM ’94, orchestral conducting) addressed the Curtis Institute’s 77th graduating class at the commencement ceremony on May 15 in the institute’s Field Concert Hall. Gilbert, a Curtis graduate, received an honorary Doctor of Music degree.

In July, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra announced the appointment of Provost and Dean Ara Guzelimian as senior advisor for its new artistic and digital media initiative, a program enabled by a four-year, $1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Guzelimian will work to support the development of multimedia activities, humanities projects, and various other programming.   

On September 17, Evening Division faculty member Julie Jordan (MM ’83, piano) will offer the next installment of her concert series, Julie Jordan Presents, featuring guest soloists with orchestra at St. Joseph’s Church in Greenwich Village. In June, Jordan performed and gave master classes at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall as part of Summer Soloists 2010, a series featuring musicians from schools across the United States. In May, Julie Jordan Presents collaborated with the Youth Theater Japan, in a program featuring Carlos Avila (BM ’08, piano) and the Noname Quartet, which includes Juilliard students Arianna Warsaw-Fan, violin, Ritchie Zah, violin, and Meta Weiss, cello, and alumna Hari Bernstein (BM ’10, viola). In July, Jordan performed and taught at Capilla de Musica de las Bernardas at Burgos Conservatorio in Spain and at Sala Suffredini in Castelnuovo di Garfagnana in Italy.   

Literature and Materials of Music and Evening Division faculty member Raymond Lustig (MM ’05, composition) composed the music for Yass Hakoshima Movement Theater’s Rashomon, performed in April at the Ailey Citigroup Theater in New York City. 

In May, Juilliard President Joseph W. Polisi received an honorary Doctor of Arts degree from Middlebury College in Vermont at the school’s commencement ceremony. Journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, documentary filmmaker Errol Morris, and U.S. army colonel and Middlebury alumnus Mark Weld Odom were among the honorees. 

Pre-College faculty member Tali Roth (MM ’93, guitar) performed with castanets master Silvia Duran, members of the Israel Philharmonic, and tango dancers at the Suzanne Dellal Center in Israel, June 24-26. In addition, Roth recorded the guitar tracks for the Woody Allen film You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, slated for release in the United States in September.

George Stelluto (Artist Diploma ’06, orchestral conducting), resident conductor at Juilliard, was selected to be the new music director of the Peoria (Ill.) Symphony Orchestra. The three-year appointment was announced in June. Stelluto will continue his work at Juilliard and also as assistant conductor at the Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.  

STUDENT NEWS

Khari Joyner, a bachelor’s cello student of Joel Krosnick, performed with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra in the Music at Moorland series at Moorland Farms in Far Hills, N.J., in June. In February, Joyner performed the Dvorak Cello Concerto with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra at Kleinhans Music Hall in Buffalo, and in December he played the second movement of the Elgar Cello Concerto with the New World Symphony in the Lincoln Theater in Miami Beach. 

Juilliard’s graduate resident quartet, the Afiara String Quartet—which includes Valerie Li, violin, Yuri Cho (BM ’02, MM ’04, violin), David Samuel (BM ’02, MM ’04, viola), and Adrian Fung, cello—won the Young Canadian Musicians Award in April, receiving a prize of $25,000. The award was founded by Haig Oundjian, father of Toronto Symphony Orchestra music director and Young Canadian Musicians Award panelist Peter Oundjian (BM ’81, MM ’81, violin).