Chairman Kovner, President Woetzel, President Emeritus Polisi, Provost and
Dean Guzelimian, distinguished honorees, esteemed board of trustees,
renowned faculty and staff, dear friends, fabulously devoted family members and
brilliant resilient amazing Juilliard class of 2019, what a joy to be here
to celebrate your commencement!
I am giddy and I'm grateful to be able to add my
voice to your impassioned cheering
section of friends and family and fans near and far.
That dazzling phrase of just a few years ago, "You got into
Juilliard," now meets its beautiful counterpart "You got out of Juilliard!"
Yes!
[audience applause]
Congratulations, what an accomplishment.
It's big, it's big.
And this day is made even more glorious by the fact that it's co-owned by so
many people in your life who have walked and stumbled and lept with you along the
way: your family, your friends, your mentors, your scene partners, your
creative investors, your co-conspirators, your besties, your muses, all of these
forces are gathered here around you on this bright morning to recognize your
great accomplishment.
The concentric circles of your talent, the ripple
effects of the work you've put in here
resonate this morning far beyond Lincoln Center.
I was fortunate to be a student here from 2000 until 2004 first for my
Master's degree and then for my Artist Diploma in Opera Studies.
When President Woetzel asked me to give this
year's commencement speech my first
thought was that it feels like just yesterday that I was making a running
dive into the elevator to get to Ms. Cox's ear training class on time and I
still occasionally have that recurring dream as fresh now as it was in my first
semester that I'm back on stage at the Sharp Theater singing The Countess in
Le Nozze di Figaro – a role I was lucky enough to sing here for the first time.
In my dream the bliss of Mozart's harmonies are enveloping us and my
colleagues are spinning out these gorgeous lines peppered with DaPonte's
delicious Italian twists and turns and suddenly I am realizing that I'm singing
in a language that's totally unrecognizable and I'm stark naked
[laughter]
Classic Juilliard anxiety dream, this place gave me one or two of those, but it
also gave me the phrase and the life lesson 'In bocca al lupo.'
Yeah, as my vocal arts family here will tell you that's
what we opera singers say to each other as we walk on stage.
It's the Italian equivalent of 'break a leg.'
'In bocca al lupo' means literally 'into the wolf's mouth.'
There. Go.
Feel you heart race, yes, but take that step, take the stage.
Bring it.
In bocca al lupo speaks to the nature of courage, which is not the
absence of fear, but rather acting in the presence of fear.
In bocca al lupo says
that if something scares you it's a sign that it's worthy of your energies.
What this is meant for me and what you'll soon find out if you haven't already is
that in future seasons when you stand on the great stages of the world, when you
present at the United Nations, when you face a classroom of third graders you
won't be daunted you'll know that you can do it because here you brought all
of yourself even on those days that you were under slept and overwhelmed.
You face down your toughest scenes and your fugues and fuertes and fioratura
passages and in the practice room you faced yourself.
You have been forged in these flames
of legacy and history and you showed up and you did it.
I've been talking to you all in my head for the last couple of weeks
wondering what essential pieces of wit
and wisdom I wish that I'd heard 15 years ago.
As a singer, I'm an interpretive artist someone who loves to
breathe life into other people's words
and melodies--for that reason I'm deeply
comfortable quoting folks wiser than myself.
So, here are four quotes tied to four key qualities that you'll be carrying out
with you on to the corner of Broadway and 65th Street later this afternoon.
Quote number one: "If you ask me what I came to do in this
world I an artist will answer I came to live out loud,"
19th century French novelist and playwright Emile Zola.
Now, there's no way you could have made.
it to this graduation moment if you weren't living out loud boldly with
purpose and as we've likely seen when
you live out loud the universe hears you.
You may have a crazy idea like placing
hundreds of artist-design pianos in
the streets for anyone to play and you
will carry it forth because here you
have trained yourself to dream big and speak loud.
This doesn't mean that every venture
venture you pursue will succeed.
In my career as a singer and my work with Sing For Hope,
I've definitely been shot down more times than I care to count.
I'll never forget the noted philanthropist
who explained to me that only somebody who
doesn't respect music would put instruments on the streets for anyone to
play so your boldness will at times be met with blank stares but if you stay
true to your heart's mission and keep going you will find your people your
spiritual board of directors your personal founders circle and they will
share your vision and what you create with them will be amazing.
Quote number two: "Art alone can sharpen the moral
imagination and turn sorrow into meaning,"
American novelist and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison.
Your art helps us make sense of a world
that feels increasingly chaotic and uncertain
Of course the life of an artist isn't
always rosy and there will be those days when you want to hurl
your instrument across the room always awkward if you're a singer or a dancer
or a playwright, but fundamentally
you create art because you made a choice
a long time ago to double down on a life of meaning.
You've made the choice to be vital in the sense of - 'la vida' - a life fully lived.
As purveyors of live creative art,
you're like the slow food movement
farm-to-table, you hearken back centuries
in order to point us forward to a more
sustainable future...you are the brilliant
repurposers of the endlessly renewable
resource that is creativity, you are
our call to attention, the artisanal
weaver's of our dreams, the beekeeper,
the honey-maker in the hill country, the
wake-up call, the generator of hope.
There has never been a more important time in
history for you and your art.
Quote number three: "To be an artist you need
the skin of an elephant and the soul of a butterfly,"
iconic soprano and Juilliard alum Evelyn Lear.
To be strong, even as you're vulnerable, that's fierce,
that's rare, that's power, and that's what you've honed here.
The complexities of our art forms are many,
but, in essence, all great art rests on simple building blocks.
For those of us who are singers, and we're all singers, our work begins
and ends with the simplest of elements: breath.
Vocalized breath is the first indicator
of human life as any newborn's
cry will tell you and it connects us all.
It's this deeply connected state that we
tap into when we share art and it's why
you all as creatives are quite literally
our hope for a unified future.
You are the butterfly soul protected by the
elephant's skin--that is a superpower
that you carry out from this building later today along with your diploma.
Quote number four, from another Juilliard alum, "I am interested in pushing for the
role of culture to have an equal place
at the table with politics and economics,"
iconic cellist and change-maker Yo-Yo Ma.
Enter citizen artistry.
You all, Juilliard tribe know this stuff well.
Citizen artistry is a vision in which artistic
expression is positioned as a central
part of individual wellness and societal harmony.
In neighborhoods right outside
these doors, in rising economies like
Sri Lanka and Mexico, in places like Puerto Rico that are
recovering from disaster and all around
the globe citizen artists are helping to
build new societies of justice and peace.
They're voicing the UN Sustainable Development Goals,
they are bringing arts universal language to bear on challenges
ranging from the refugee crisis to
education inequality to healthcare.
Sing For Hope, fostered here at Juilliard by myself and bestie and fellow soprano
brilliant Juilliard grad Monica Yunus, has produced creative programming that
spans refugee camps in Greece to classrooms in the South Bronx to the
Sing For Hope pianos that hit the streets of
New York City next week and in countries
around the world members of our
Juilliard family are leading the citizen
artist charge because Juilliard's ethos of
excellence acts as a megaphone, a high frequency resonance.
Thinking back on my graduation a decade and a half ago, I had
no idea how I would honor my sense
of social justice and still sing on the
level that I aspired to I still don't
know that and I said I don't know so
many things, but looking back to my
graduation moment I did I did do a few
things right and before I close I want
to share those things with you.
First of all, this community you are forever a part of it.
The people in this room are your team!
Your teachers and colleagues
here are among the best in the world and
when you leave they will still be
an incredible resource for you as
you will be for them.
Stay connected, stay in touch, nurture
these relationships, keep creating together.
Secondly, living boldly and
speaking truthfully will expose you to heartbreak.
Expect this and know that you will heal.
In the end, the gain of a fully ventured life
is more than worth it and
you'll be stronger than ever.
And last, but not least, this: your unique talent,
specific to you alone, has been
cultivated to peak form here.
This essence, this inspiration what in Spanish
we call, 'duende,'' what could be called'
'soul,' is completely individual even as it
connects us to something universal in
our human experience.
"It's your little light,"
to quote the spiritual that
Leontyne Price saying when she was a student here.
It's the creative spark that lives in each person.
The beauty and power of your spark
is why you were chosen to be here.
This light lives with you and you alone
and it can never be taken away.
Remember this because the world
needs your light right now,
perhaps more than ever.
During your time here,
your job has been to cultivate your
light to stretch and arpeggiate and
amplify it and now it's time for you to
get out of the way and let it shine--that
is the hardest work of all the work for
which all other work is but
preparation and it's the work you were born to do.
Brilliant, resilient, amazing Juilliard class of 2019:
Shine on.
Thank you.
[audience applause]