August 22, 2001 Contact: Janet Kessin Elizabeth Dworkin, dworkin eliason pARTners (914) 244-3803

Gala Concert and Dinner to Honor
Juilliard's Former Chairman, Mary Rodgers Guettel

On Monday, February 4, 2002, celebrated actors and stars of stage and screen, Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, will host the third in a series of celebratory benefits for The Juilliard School and its Campaign for Juilliard, the largest capital campaign in the history of performing arts conservatories. February's gala evening, The Richard Rodgers Centennial -- A Juilliard Celebration, takes place in the Juilliard Theater, and honors two people important to Juilliard, alumnus Richard Rodgers, on the occasion of his centennial, and his daughter, Juilliard Trustee Mary Rodgers Guettel, who recently completed her tenure as Chairman of the School's Board of Trustees. In addition to Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, special celebrity guest stars, including Carol Burnett and Michael Feinstein, and the Juilliard Orchestra will join conductor Jonathan Tunick in an evening of some of Richard Rodgers' greatest works.

The program will be followed by a black-tie dinner on the Paul Milstein Plaza at Lincoln Center. The evening's proceeds will benefit Juilliard's Drama Division, a four-year, degree-granting program that is one of the most highly regarded in the nation. Part of the funds raised will be applied to endowing and naming the Richard Rodgers Director of the Drama Division, a position that has been held since 1992 by the distinguished educator and director, Michael Kahn.

The Juilliard School has figured prominently in Rodgers family history. From 1920 to 1924, young Richard Rodgers studied music theory at the Institute of Musical Art (as Juilliard was then known). He later served for many years on Juilliard's Board of Trustees and was a generous patron. The School annually awards two scholarships that honor his name and legacy: The Richard Rodgers Memorial Scholarship in Drama and the Richard Rodgers Scholarship in Composition.

A third award, the Rodgers & Hammerstein Scholarship in Composition, was endowed in 1959 by Max Dreyfus, Rodgers' music publisher. Juilliard's benefit is but one event in an entire season of worldwide Richard Rodgers celebrations.

Mary Rodgers Guettel is a respected composer in her own right, whose works include the enduringly popular musical Once Upon a Mattress, and for theater and television Hot Spot, The Mad Show, Young Mark Twain, the revue Hey, Love, and Marlo Thomas's Free to Be...You and Me. Mrs. Guettel is an award-winning writer, civic leader, arts advocate, and philanthropist. She has been a member of Juilliard's Board of Trustees since 1992. Among her numerous accomplishments as Chairman of Juilliard's Board from 1994 to 2001, Mrs. Guettel saw the successful completion of the first phase of The Campaign for Juilliard, the School's historic $100 million capital campaign. Last April, Bruce Kovner, Chairman of The Campaign for Juilliard, and successor to Mrs. Guettel as Board Chairman, announced an increase of the School's original fundraising goal to $150 million.

A generous $12 million grant from the Jerome L. Greene Foundation, the largest single gift to Juilliard in the history of the School, allowed The Campaign for Juilliard to reach its original goal. The gift supports Jerome L. Greene Fellowships for students in music, dance, and drama, the first scholarships in Juilliard's history that support students in all three of the performing arts taught at the School. Mrs. Jerome L. Greene, president of the Foundation, made the gift in memory of her late husband who was a generous and active member of Juilliard's Board of Trustees from 1985 until his death in 1999.

The Campaign for Juilliard is dedicated to ensuring that the highest level of educational excellence, for which Juilliard is renowned around the world, will continue far into the future. Funds from the campaign will endow increased scholarships, faculty compensation, key educational programs, the commissioning of new works in music, dance and drama, and improvements in the Juilliard building.

For information about benefit ticket purchases, call Loulie Walker at Buckley Hall Events at (212) 573-6933.