[applause]
Just to give you a sense of how these things happen
As I walked backstage right before, I saw a conspiratorial look
between Buck and Anthony, and they said,
"I think we're going to do something together, I hope that's OK."
It wasn't a question. [laughter] It was just a statement.
And I just love that. I mean,
Anthony and all the artists today are incredible communicators.
He made that live.
It was just alive in the room and bouncing off the walls like atoms.
And I just love that spirit of the extraordinary opportunity that we have as artists—to communicate,
to share, to take something that we love... I'm going to switch here, can we do this?
To take something that we love and give it to somebody else.
Essentially, to say that “this is not just for me.
I may have worked at this my whole life.
I may have,” as Areta said, “‘learned to feel it in myself so that I could then
be open to sharing it.’”
But that the end result—what you’re trying to do, actually, is to share it.
That’s really the thing.
That’s a higher form of artistry, is what I was thinking.
And that’s not something that we just take lightly.
What is our own artistry?
How do we share what we believe in and what we love?
And that’s the spirit that we hope for all of you—all of you students, new and returning—is
to find that in yourself and give it out to the world.
That it’s about the audience in the end.
It’s about how you share that with them.
So in a sense it’s that, you know, we’re always workshopping.
It’s never done.
And what I’m realizing today is that this resembles a workshop much more than an event.
It’s not some set thing—things like that—where, suddenly, we had a ghost, essentially, going
across the back of Stravinsky’s music and Anthony’s incredible interpretation.
And I think that’s important that we note that at this moment as we start.
Because we’re not just starting.
We’re restarting.
We’re not just beginning.
We’re re-beginning.
And that’s what we do the rest of our lives as artists.
That is an artistic habit of mind and it’s an artistic practice.
And so I’ve been reflecting—a lot—about this institution’s practice.
In so many ways, this year will be marked with the same things that have gone on in
this building and in the building uptown before it for over a hundred years.
The rhythm of the performance halls and of the practice rooms, on the stages and
in the small group settings.
We’re all going to aspire to perform to our highest caliber and we’ll harness our
energy and work on our skills.
And we will do that and we will touch the stone of the past.
We’ll all take our place in the flow.
You will all take your place in the flow of what Juilliard is—what the history is.
Ara mentioned Wynton Marsalis, who we’re so lucky to have leading our jazz program.
He always talks about our ancestors.
He talks about taking a “roll call” before you perform and just calling out somebody that
made that difference for you.
It just matters so much to see where you are in that continuum—where we live.
And as you take your places, you become shareholders in this trust.
And it is a trust not only within this school.
It’s a trust of the arts.
It is such a privilege to enter that world.
And here at Juilliard, that’s where we plant our flag—where we foster next generations
who will write the next lines and who will contribute.
And I wonder and I marvel when I think about what your contributions will be—all of you.
I’m humbled at the possibilities that you represent from the newest student to the most
senior faculty member.
And we have people in this building—faculty members who have been here for over 50 years
working for the betterment of students.
This faculty and staff is so dedicated and they’re all here for you.
Can we have all the faculty and staff please stand?
[applause]
Thank you all.
Thank you.
Thank you for your service, which is deep as well as wide—for your lifelong commitments
that inspire and resonate across decades.
The mix of history and continuum in the singular opportunity of a moment: that’s what we
have here.
All of that—its weight—and yet, it’s a moment when you make a choice, when you
say yes.
And you always should say yes, as Areta said.
Say yes.
Don’t miss your shot.
Go!
What distinguishes our commitment then, here, beyond excellence?—which is a tradition
which will go on and on into the world.
It is the deep note that we sound: our tradition of excellence.
I believe that here at Juilliard it’s paramount we develop not only the artist but the full
person, as my predecessor, Joseph Polisi, often said.
Each of us has a chance to seize the moment and to create our own powerful artistic voice.
To take that artistic voice and to share it.
And we seek to foster a growing community of these voices—of your voices—of our
voices together.
This is a community that is open.
This is a community that is pluralistic and recognizes that if it isn’t, it is less than.
It is a community of grace.
It is a community of gratitude.
Community of curiosity.
And of conviction.
It’s a community that always asks itself—this question that Yo-Yo Ma always frames so beautifully—“What
can we do together that we cannot do alone?”
This convocation marks a transformational moment—for me, as I take on the presidency.
For many of you, new students.
It’s a transformation though, at every moment, for every one of us.
If you’ve been in this building for two days, two years, two decades—there’s always
a moment of transformation to be had.
And it’s important to remember that.
I’ve listened on this campus and to alumni over the last years.
And among the goals that I’ve heard are several that are central that I’d like to
lay out for you now.
I’ve heard that people want more opportunities for collaboration across disciplines.
Providing a platform for generative work—for creative work—as an essential part of your
educations—as it will be a part of your lives when you leave this building.
I have heard that people want us to lead the performing arts field to be ever more inclusive
and to embody that principle in everything that we do here.
And I’ve heard that everybody wants us to maintain and ever enhance Juilliard’s standards
of excellence.
So we will develop a long-term plan to those ends over the course of the next year with
a three-part framework.
First, we recognize that at Juilliard, as we’ve seen, we are in an extraordinary position
with music, dance, and drama all coexisting here on the highest level.
And with that, we have unique opportunities.
As I said in an introductory message I sent out on July 1, today’s artists are entrepreneurs,
educators, leaders, collaborators, and change agents with careers that are imagined, re-imagined,
and applied in ever-more inventive and community-building ways.
We spark and re-spark our imaginations and refresh our artistic expression every day
here.
The director Ava DuVernay has a saying that I keep coming back to.
She says, “The riches are in the niches.”
She said you think about it and you say, “That’s my place.”
Somebody says, “No.”
Oh, that’s my place.
Oh, no?
That’s my place.
We find ways to find new grasping points every time.
The riches are in the niches.
So I encourage you to find your own niches—to reach out and to overlap with others around
you because that’s where you’re going to find the greatest life.
In ecology, it’s called the edge effect.
It’s when you rub two systems next to each other.
The greatest biodiversity is in that overlap.
Forest and the savanna—that’s where you find all of the growth.
And that’s what we’re going to encourage here through collaboration.
And we’ll explore and expand our activities across the school.
We see the beginnings of this already, of course, and it has lived here, I should add,
for time immemorial.
But this is a re-emphasis and a recommitment that I’m talking about.
We see it in Evan’s jam session and we see it in our new Creative Associates, which I
just introduced several to you: Lil Buck, Caroline Shaw, and Bill Irwin.
Our collective of the Creative Associates will also include bandleader, pianist, composer,
and alumnus Jon Batiste, who will be joining us.
And tap dancer and choreographer and visionary Michelle Dorrance.
Michelle has already been working in the building with us in the last week.
They all exemplify collaborative and adventurous artistic excellence.
They all are joyful.
They all embrace challenge.
And they navigate what we call the do-it-yourself, the DIY world, with brilliance.
And they have enthusiasm and they are here to share it with you and we’re thrilled
to welcome them.
I want to thank Jody and John Arnhold for their support in making this possible and
this creative enterprise work.
Thank you, John, who is with us.
*applause*
To add something else to our creativity engine, some of you may have already seen our JuilliArt
exhibit, our visual arts program which has just begun in the lobby.
With the generosity of Julia Gruen and the Keith Haring Foundation, who have lent us
five lithographs and a sculpture by Keith Haring, we launch ourselves into the world
of inspiration and inventiveness through visual art.
It is something that to me is so just extraordinarily helpful—just to stand in front of someone
else’s artwork and imagine and to think about it.
And day in and day out as you pass those artworks, I look forward to seeing your reactions.
I’ve taken photos of many of you with those reactions.
I’m looking at you, Brittany.
Just sheer, kind of joy as she discovered what was happening.
It nourishes our spirit.
And Keith Haring’s artistic philosophy resonates with us as citizen artists.
“Art,” he said, “is for everyone.”
Which brings me to our second point.
For our voice to be true, we must be intentional and proactive in fostering a robust inclusivity.
I am pleased to announce our early planning for a multi-year president’s initiative
on equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging in the arts here at Juilliard and more broadly
in the cultural sector.
Juilliard is uniquely positioned to take a leadership role in this work and we all have
on-ramps to take part.
Beginning this year we’ll embark on a range of activities and partnerships—notably,
with the Sphinx Organization who have done such groundbreaking work nationally at fostering
diverse excellence in classical music.
We will engage in active listening to all of you within our community and in the arts
world writ large so that we may design necessary and successful programs both internal and
external.
We will work to create pathways for all to rise and for all to excel—from young students
with top-level aspirations but no access to top-level training, to teachers who need networks
and resources to effectively launch their talented students.
I want to think the Ford Foundation for partnering with us and providing new funding in support
of this work.
Thank you, Ford Foundation.
*applause*
And where is your piece of this?
Well, your piece of it is throughout, I must tell you.
But one aspect in particular is what I’ve been thinking about.
I talked with your student orientation leaders.
Orientation leaders in the house?
*applause* I offered you a collective goal: when new students text, call, perhaps write
a letter—you never know—home in these first few days, let’s work to be sure that
they say they are in exactly the right place when they do.
And that’s our goal—to make sure that everybody belongs in this building.
I urge you all to be a part of this spirit and practice it.
It will change your experience and it will change that of others.
When you extend yourself, you extend yourself for everybody.
Realize that the continuum I spoke of earlier is not simply one of achievement.
It is one of fellowship in something much larger than oneself.
I believe deeply in Juilliard as a community where each of us belongs and that education
cannot be its best without being fully inclusive.
That brings me to my last and overarching element in our framework: Juilliard itself.
For it to be the best it can be, we need to ensure the school’s overall well-being.
And I do mean we.
It’s all of us.
It’s as we walk the halls and if we see something that’s fallen on the floor, we
pick it up, and we say, “This is my building.
This is my place.”
If we see a student in need, we raise our hand to them and say, “Please, can I help
you?”
We are here for each other.
That is what Juilliard is.
And on the institutional side, we will launch a new strategic planning process and work
to increase the ways that we can support you, our students, and support our school overall.
We can spur new programs and new partnerships and new resources with this spirit, which
will expand the bedrock we stand upon.
And this renewal will be the foundation to jump from for the future.
And we’re all a part of it.
So, let us celebrate as we begin—or re-begin—this year.
Let’s work together to be the most expansive artists and humans that we can be—to not
limit ourselves.
To “contain multitudes,” as the poet Walt Whitman wrote.
What he meant was to live big, vibrant lives—even contradictory lives.
To say, “I believe this” one day and the next day say, “no, I’ve changed my mind.”
To engage in that iterative practice that we talked about at the beginning—that we
keep re-addressing, we keep re-beginning.
And that’s my honor to be with you in this process every day.
I’m grateful to you.
I’m grateful to your families, who got you here.
I’m grateful to my own family who got me here to be with you.
And I’m especially grateful to my wife, Heather, who’s up there.
Thank you, Heather.
*applause*
To my predecessor, Joseph Polisi, I am forever in debt and I can tell you I continue to amass
charges on the bill of advice and perspective every day.
I’m grateful to our board and to our chairman, Bruce Kovner, who support all we do with passion
and commitment and belief.
And I am profoundly in awe of and grateful to our extraordinary faculty and staff.
With you in this time and this place where we have come together to re-begin, as we look
to the future together with hope and determination, I see for Juilliard a future that preserves
its magnificent traditions while becoming ever more diverse and ever more collaborative.
I see for Juilliard a bold, joyful, creative, unstoppable spirit which nurtures individuality.
And I see for Juilliard an endless continuum of beauty—of artists who launch their voices
into the universe.
We can do this.
We get to do this.
And we can only do this—together.
Thank you.