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>>ARA GUZELIMIAN: The ideal Juilliard student begins with
an absolute commitment to excellence and
the kind of restlessness, but that's just the starting point. You have to be open
to new experience. You have to be curious.
>>VEDA KAPLINSKY: It's not just the technical ability or
the talent. It's also the need to express themselves, the need to convey the
message to an audience.
>>ARA: It might be tempting to think that Juilliard, because
of its reputation, as a rather intimidating and rigorous place, and I
think one of the biggest surprises for people is to walk in the building and
experience the atmosphere.
>>RYAN ROBERTS: We all work so hard every single day, and there's
something about that that unites us as a community or as a species even.
>>RONALD COPES: One of Juilliard's strengths is, without any
question, the fact that it is here in New York City.
>>RANDALL GOOSBY: As an artist in general, you can't really ask for a better location.
You know, we're right in Lincoln Center across the street from the ballet, the
Met, the Philharmonic, 10 blocks away from Carnegie Hall, so I mean we really have
access to top, top quality musicians and concerts and venues. Just being in those
spaces is really inspiring, let alone hearing, you know, some of the world's
greatest musicians, some of whom teach here.
>>ARA: So many of the faculty themselves
are practitioners of the art, that they come with this deep, internal
understanding of what a student is going through.
>>ANGIE ZHANG: Juilliard has such an amazing
piano faculty, and I feel very lucky and grateful to be able to study with Veda
Kaplinsky. I've learned so much from her. I can always go to her for advice.
>>VEDA: There's nothing more invigorating than coming into school tired and then having one of
these amazingly talented people sit at the piano and wake you up.
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>>ARA: With the presence of the Juilliard quartet and so many distinguished chamber
musicians on the faculty, there's a very high-profile presence of chamber music.
>>RAYMOND MASE: Well, training in chamber music is really
training in basic skills of music making,
and maybe the really strong part of it is that the members of a chamber music
group, they have to communicate a certain way and have to make their own decisions.
>>RANDALL: Orchestra is really amazing, largely because we get to work with really,
really great conductors, and we get to perform in great spaces.
>>RYAN: We get access to performance spaces that are part of
Lincoln Center. We have Alice Tully Hall
on campus and the Peter Jay Sharp Theater, but through the orchestra
program we get access to outside venues: Carnegie Hall, for example, the Met Museum.
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>>ARA: I think very important for any great artist not to have tunnel vision about
their own art, and in this building, you have to encounter actors, jazz musicians,
dancers, opera singers. You can't walk down the hallway
without being infused with that presence.
>>ANGIE: I've worked with dancers for New Dances two times in a
row and that has been such an amazing journey, and if you see a dance movement,
you see it visually and then when you go back and work on the melody you kind of
want to do more with it.
>>VIOLA CHAN: Seeing the dancers and actors work ethic and
how they practice. It's very different from being a musician, but it's something
that I feel can help you become an artist and not just a musician.
>>RONALD: One thing that stands out about Juilliard is the
training to become citizens in the world, as well as excellent musicians.
>>MAX TAN: We've been given this space to imagine what
art can be and what art can mean.
>>RAYMOND: Being able to deliver your product, so to
speak, to the audience. Being able to speak about it and make it something
that they can understand more easily in this day in age, it's how people do
things. And I think I'm very aware of making
sure the students get that experience here.
>>RYAN: I knew that Julliard was going to
be really intense, but I don't think I could have expected how fun it was going
to be. You know, when I have a morning rehearsal, I always leave with a glow or
some sort of positive energy that really comes directly from working with such
incredible students and teachers.
>>ARA: I'm very fond of saying behind every door
in this building is a potential miracle. Anyone considering Juilliard as a
possibility needs to be open to all of that potential for growth because you
never know when that miracle is going to happen and how it's going to strike.
>>MAX: Most importantly, we're given the space to really dream about what we would love
to do, and then we get a chance to explore
and experiment with that during our time here.
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