The Juilliard Journal

4 New Dances Take Shape: Choreographers Create at Juilliard

By SUSAN REITER

In the ninth annual New Dances series, a choreographer makes a dance for each year’s section of Juilliard dancers. This year’s choreographers are Monica Bill Barnes (working with the first-year dancers), Alex Ketley (second-years), Pam Tanowitz (third-years), and Alexander Ekman (fourth-years). The dances will be performed from December 14 to 18 in the Peter Jay Sharp Theater. More...

Spanning Centuries: Carter on Elliott, Eliot, and Others

By TONI MARIE MARCHIONI

“What keeps me going is all those damn notes in my head.” So said Elliott Carter about the secret to his longevity in a recent interview with The Journal. He still composes two to four hours every day and has completed almost 20 new works since turning 100. Axiom gives his song cycle Three Explorations (2010) its world premiere at Juilliard on December 12, the day after his 103rd birthday. More...

Badly Behaved Brits in Coward’s Hay Fever

By MICHAEL CURRAN-DORSANO

Actor Dakin Matthews, who is directing the upcoming Juilliard Drama Division production of Noel Coward’s Hay Fever, describes this early play as one of the British playwright’s “elegant comedies.” Written in 1924, Hay Fever centers on the eccentric Blisses. Unconventional, risqué, and often downright rude, the Blisses are everything an upper-crust English family should not be. Filled with wit, extreme characters, and ridiculous situations, Hay Fever opens on December 8. More...

Focus! on John Cage

By JOEL SACHS

In January 2012, the Focus! festival celebrates the centennial of John Cage, which is a sign of the tremendous changes that have taken place at Juilliard in the past 40 years. Whereas any celebration of Cage was unthinkable when I started teaching here, in 1970, my first mention of this idea brought an enthusiastic response from President Polisi and Dean Guzelimian. As the word got out, students in large numbers asked to be part of it. More...

Joe Lovano’s J.J.O. Debut

By ZACHARY GREEN

The son of a prominent tenor saxophonist, Joe Lovano was immersed in music from an early age. “Growing up around my dad [Tony “Big T” Lovano] and his crowd shaped my development. Hearing my dad practice and try reeds at home vibrated the house, and I just wanted to create that sound for myself,” Lovano recently told The Journal. The saxophonist and composer makes his debut with the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra on January 24. More...