by JENI DAHMUS December 2001

January 21, the Juilliard Graduate School gave the New York premiere and second U.S. production of Handel’s opera Julius Caesar. The cast featured Carl Theman, Willard Young, Janice Kraushaar, John Barr, Lelane Rivera, Raymond Middleton, George Newton, and Roderic Cross. Albert Stoessel conducted; Alfredo Valenti served as artistic director.

1946

December 29, the League of Composers honored Darius Milhaud with a concert in which he conducted his own works at the Museum of Modern Art. An ensemble including Juilliard musicians performed three cantatas—Les Amours de Ronsard, Adages, Pan et la Syrinx—and the woodwind quintet La Cheminée du Roi René. January 7, 1947, Milhaud visited Juilliard to meet with student composers and conduct a concert of four cantatas: the three works performed at the Museum of Modern Art as well as the U.S. premiere of Cantate pour L’Inauguration du Musée de L’Homme, with text by Robert Desnos. The composer’s wife, Madeleine Milhaud, narrated the Juilliard event.

Frank Zappa (far right) and former dean Bruce MacCombie, with bassoon soloist Jay Lesowski, at the New York premiere of the composer’s The Perfect Stranger during the 1988 Focus! festival. (Photo by Peter Schaaf)

December 18, Juilliard held a special concert of Alban Berg’s chamber music featuring the premiere of Two Songs (unedited extract from Die Musik 1930), performed by soprano Bethany Beardslee and pianist Jacques-Louis Monod. The duo also presented Seven Early Songs (1905–08) and Four Songs, Op. 2 (1908-10). The remainder of the program consisted of Lyric Suite (1925-26), performed by the Juilliard String Quartet; Piano Sonata, Op. 1 (1907–08), performed by Beveridge Webster; and Four Pieces for Clarinet and Piano, Op. 5 (1913), performed by Herbert Tichman and James MacInnes.

January 22-29, the fourth annual Focus! festival explored the topic “Crosscurrents: Classical Music and the American Popular Tradition.” Works presented by festival director Joel Sachs were either written by “classical” composers who turned to popular idioms or by American popular and jazz composers who embraced classical models. The five concert programs included several rarely performed pieces and the New York premieres of Frank Zappa’s The Perfect Stranger (1982), Ornette Coleman’s Poets and Writers (1962), Ernst Krenek’s Suite from Jonny Spielt Auf (1925–26) arranged by Yvar Mikhashoff (1980–81), and David Baker’s Le Chat Qui Pêche (1974). Program II, titled The Early Years, featured members of the Dance, Drama, and Music Divisions in Anna Sokolow’s Evolution of Ragtime (1952), a dance based on the life and music of Jelly Roll Morton. Ms. Sokolow chose selections from Morton’s work to illustrate the evolution of his style through choreography in eight movements. Dancers Nancy Bannon and Reuben Ornelas, narrator David Adkins, and pianist Steven Argila performed.

Jeni Dahmus is Juilliard’s archivist.