The Juilliard School

The Juilliard School is building an extraordinary future as it commences its second century of excellence in providing education for aspiring dancers, actors, and musicians, expanding its facilities with a 39,000 square-foot addition, due for completion in 2009, as the School continues to educate thousands of aspiring artists and expand its mission to instill a strong sense of activism and arts advocacy in its students.

Since opening in October 1905 with the name Institute of Musical Art, and a first‑year class of close to 500 students, Juilliard has set this country's standard for education in the performing arts. Today's Juilliard continues to represent such excellence, growing with and responding to the needs of a thriving cultural community in New York City, the U.S., and abroad, with more than 800 dance, drama, and music students drawn from 47 states and 50 foreign countries. The school offers degree programs from the bachelor to the doctorate, as well as highly selective and competitive diploma programs in jazz, opera, performance, string quartet, playwriting, and theater directing. Juilliard alumni are working artists who carry with them the highest standards of the performing arts profession worldwide.

During the Juilliard presidency of Pulitzer Prize-winning composer William Schuman (1945-62), the School established Juilliard's Dance Division (1951), making it the first major teaching institution ever to combine equal dance instruction in both contemporary and ballet techniques. In 1968, a four-year Drama Division was added, and in 1969 it became part of Lincoln Center, for which it was the sole academic constituent. 

In 1983, Dr. Joseph W. Polisi became Juilliard's sixth president beginning with the 1984-85 academic year. His tenure has been a time of vitality, with the establishment of new student services; alumni programs; revised curriculum; new emphasis on liberal arts; greater interaction between the three Juilliard divisions of music, dance, and drama; new emphasis on humanities, community outreach, and the arts in education; creation of a CD-ROM to teach music to children; and the development of a comprehensive long-range plan for the school to guide it through the 21^st century. Beginning in 2001, Juilliard broke new ground by adding undergraduate and graduate programs of study in jazz, including the pre-professional Juilliard Institute for Jazz Studies, a collaboration with Jazz at Lincoln Center.  Juilliard’s ambitious $300 million Second Century Fund supports and enhances student and faculty funding, and helps initiate important artistic and academic projects. Its expected completion coincides with the opening of Juilliard’s renovated building containing state-of-the-art studios, theaters, rehearsal halls, centers for music technology and writing/communication, and a secure home for the priceless Juilliard Manuscript Collection. In addition to its college programs, Juilliard offers graduate and pre-college programs in music, continuing education program for adults, community outreach programs for New York City students, and specialized music programs for children from under-represented populations.