Juilliard
Cloth: 01/01/1999
About the Book
Richard Rodgers. Miles Davis. Van Cliburn. Itzhak Perlman. Robin Williams, Kevin Kline, Patti LuPone. Mandy Patinkin. For over a century, Juilliard has trained the artists who compose the elite of the performing arts in the United States. Andrea Olmstead's eye-opening history of the conservatory takes readers into the practice rooms, studios, and offices of the world-famous music school and its sister institutions teaching drama and dance.Olmstead's in-depth interviews from across the Julliard community combine with unprecedented access to the school's archives to reveal the school's private side. As she tracks the institution through its various incarnations, Olmstead looks at the accomplishments and foibles of Julliard's leaders and the white-hot controversies surrounding events like Augustus Juilliard's multi- million-dollar bequest in 1919 and the school's expensive move to the Lincoln Center complex. Throughout, she provides vivid accounts of power-brokering, arrogance, intimidation, secrecy, and infighting balanced against the vision, dedication, talent, and determination of generations of gifted teachers, students, and administrators.
* Publication of this book was supported by the Henry and Edna Binkele Classical Music Fund.
About the Author
Andrea Olmstead taught music at The Juilliard School from 1972 to 1980. She is the author of Roger Sessions and His Music and other works.Reviews
"Even the practice rooms come to life in Juilliard: A History."--Washington Post Book World"A history of Juilliard, the country's largest, richest music school, has long been needed, and Olmstead's book nicely fills the gap. Her research has been thorough and without interference from the school; and the story she has uncovered, which has some remarkable twists and turns, she tells well."--George W. Martin
"Offers readers tantalizing extracts from archival sources as it proceeds to chronicle the complicated evolution of the modern-day Juilliard. . . . . A powerful case study in how private institutions not only depend on charismatic personalities and great wealth but must be able to outwit and survive their dominance."--Leon Botstein, Musical Quarterly
"A fascinating account of the personalities, politics, and cultural background of the Juillard School."--Sondra Wieland Howe, MLA Notes
"A thoroughly researched narrative centered on the personalities and relationships that have given the school its character and nurtured it in its path to fame. . . . The view is illuminiating."--Karen Ahlquist, Journal of the American Musicological Society
"The first comprehensive history of the best-known musical conservatoire in the United States. Based on thorough research, many interviews, and first-hand experience of teaching at Juilliard. Olmstead traces the shifting artistic policies, student experience, and faculty membership of the various institutions that metamorphosed over the years into The Juilliard School of today."--Kenneth Morgan, American Studies
"The story is fascinating, involving as it does the legendary musicians from the past who taught legendary musicians of yesterday and today. . . . The transformation of the Juilliard School, following the fusion of [the Institute of Musical Art and Juilliard] . . . was thorough, radical, troubled, controversial, and often brilliant. Olmstead makes it as provocative in the reading as it seemed when it was happening."--Robert Commanday, San Francisco Classical Voice
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