Juilliard: A HISTORY (Music in American Life) [Hardcover]

Andrea Olmstead (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 21, 1999 | Series: Music in American Life

In this first comprehensive history, Andrea Olmstead takes us behind the scenes and into the practice rooms, studios, and offices of one of the most famous music schools in the world. The roster of Juilliard faculty and their students reads like a veritable who's who of the performing arts world. The music school has counted Josef and Rosina Lhevinne and Olga Samaroff Stokowski among its faculty, with students including Richard Rodgers, Van Cliburn, James Levine, Leontyne Price, Miles Davis, and Itzhak Perlman. The dance faculty has included Jos Limn, Anna Sokolow, and the venerable Martha Graham, while such bright lights as Robin Williams, Kevin Kline, Patti LuPone, and Mandy Patinkin have emerged from the youngest department in the school, the Drama Division. What is it really like to be immersed in the rarefied, ultra-competitive conservatory atmosphere of Juilliard? Olmstead has pored over archival records and ephemeral material and conducted dozens of unprecedented interviews to paint a true picture of the school's private side and the accomplishments and foibles of its leaders. Through its various incarnations as the Institute of Musical Art, the Juilliard Musical Foundation, the Juilliard School of Music, and The Juilliard School, stormy directorships and controversies have left their mark: Augustus Juilliard's multi-million-dollar bequest in 1919, the expensive move to the Lincoln Center complex, and dozens of episodes of power-brokering, arrogance, intimidation, secrecy, and infighting. Balanced against these are the vision, dedication, talent, and determination of generations of gifted teachers, students, and administrators. For nearly a century, Juilliard has trained the artists who compose the elite corps of the performing arts community in the United States. "Juilliard: A History" affirms the school's artistic legacy of great performances as the one constant amid decades of upheaval and change.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The publication of a modern scholarly history of ... Juilliard ... is indeed timely... [Olmstead's] book is rich in historical detail. It offers readers tantalizing extracts from archival sources as it proceeds to chronicle the complicated evolution of the modern-day Juilliard... [This volume] is 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, poiltics, and cultural background of the Juillard School... Juilliard: A History is the first comprehensive history of an American conservatory." -- Sondra Wieland Howe, MLA Notes "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 "Even the practice rooms come to life in Juilliard: A History." - The Washington Post Book World "Olmstead ... has pulled the many strands of this complex story into a very readable narrative, providing a definitive study of a major conservatory - its various locations, the evolution of its curriculum, its distinguished faculty, its idealistic student body, and its relationship to the outside world." - Choice "A thoroughly researched narrative centered on the personalities and relationships that have given the school its character nad 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 "Institutional histories, like celebrity biographies, are typically boring exercises, more puff and gloss than real story - but not Juilliard... The story is fascinating, involving as it does the legendary musicians from the past who taught legendary musicians of yesterday and today... [Olmstead] probes into the modern phase of the Juilliard history penetratingly, making it immediate and real. 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

Product Details

• Hardcover: 392 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press; First Edition edition (December 21, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252024877
• ISBN-13: 978-0252024870
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,517,256 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Andrea Olmstead is the author of four books about the modernist American composer Roger Sessions: Roger Sessions: A Biography (Routledge, 2007), Roger Sessions and His Music (UMI Research Press, 1985), Conversations with Roger Sessions (Northeastern University Press, 1987), The Correspondence of Roger Sessions (Northeastern, 1992), as well as the Revised New Grove Dictionary (2001) Sessions entry. She is also the author of Juilliard: A History (University of Illinois Press, 1999) and of numerous articles in The Journal of Musicology, Perspectives of New Music, The Journal of the Arnold Schoenberg Institute, Tempo, Musical America, and The Musical Quarterly.

The recipient of three national Endowment for the Humanities Awards, she has also been a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy in Rome six times and a Fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts on four occasions. She taught Music History at The Juilliard School from 1972 to 1980. Most recently she was the Christopher Hogwood Research Fellow for the Handel and Hadyn Society Orchestra and Chorus. She is married to Rome Prize composer Larry Thomas Bell.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars At long last-almost a bull's eye, February 15, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Juilliard: A HISTORY (Music in American Life) (Hardcover)

Olmstead's book is long overdue. While the research appears thorough and the writing professional, there's at least one outright mistake. Olga Samaroff (Stokowski) never taught at the Curtis Institute, rather the Philadelphia Conservatory in the same city. She also implies that the Institute of Musical Art was the equal of the Juilliard Graduate School. All you have to do is compare the faculty and the student body prior to the merger to see that JGS was indeed where the hotshots were concentrated. I have personally concluded that the book is reliable in reporting on the post World War II Juilliard but take her account of its early years with a grain of salt. This is understandable since most of the "old guard" are now deceased. Still, a valuable reference for those of us in the field.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An inside job..., March 8, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Juilliard: A HISTORY (Music in American Life) (Hardcover)

The name Juilliard has been held synonymous with classical music training for so long that it is surprising that no-one has taken a potshot at it. This book is neither for or against Juilliard, but rather an appraisal of its strengths and weaknesses through a look at its history. The chapter on drama, containing so many references to now-household names, might be of particular interest to the casual reader. Dancers may be interested to find out why their department was forced to compete with another school in their own building. Musicians, whether they attended Juilliard or not, will find a lot of Olmstead's observations titillating. A good read, and a lot of insight from someone who worked there.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars At long last-almost a bull's eye, February 16, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Juilliard: A HISTORY (Music in American Life) (Hardcover)

Olmstead's book is long overdue. While the research appears thorough and the writing professional, there's at least one outright mistake. Olga Samaroff (Stokowski) never taught at the Curtis Institute, rather the Philadelphia Conservatory in the same city. She also implies that the Institute of Musical Art was the equal of the Juilliard Graduate School. All you have to do is compare the faculty and the student body prior to the merger to see that JGS was indeed where the hotshots were concentrated. I have personally concluded that the book is reliable in reporting on the post World War II Juilliard but take her account of its early years with a grain of salt. This is understandable since most of the "old guard" are now deceased. Still, a valuable reference for those of us in the field.