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Reunion Celebrates 10 Years of Morse Fellowship Program By WENDY LAW
Twenty-one former and five current Morse Fellows gathered on October 8 for their first-ever reunion at Juilliard, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Morse Fellowship Program, which has graduated 62 fellows since 1994. This was the perfect opportunity for the Juilliard community to show its gratitude to Lester and Dinny Morse for their continued support of this wonderful program, which has not only had a profound impact on the participating public school children, but has also trained some of the best teaching artists in the country. It was also one of those rare occasions to reunite with some of my former classmates and see how they were bringing the principles of their fellowship training into their professional lives.
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| (Left to right) Violinist Ann Miller, violinist Alissa Hendrickson, and violist Julianne Marie performed at the Morse Fellowship reunion. (Photo by Nan Melville) |
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The Morses have been longtime supporters of the Morse Fellowship Program, which provides Juilliard students with the opportunity to have firsthand experience teaching and performing for New York City public school children. Upon completion of the Arts in Education course, taught by Aaron Flagg and David Wallace, as well as Insights Into Learning, taught by Edward Bilous, students are sent into public schools to work with children and their teachers, creating and teaching completely original curriculums that explore diverse musical ideas and concepts.When I first arrived at the reunion in the Board Room outside President Polisi's office, I looked around and recognized lots of familiar faces. Many of them are former classmates, and many more are now my professional colleagues. I was struck by the level of musicianship, commitment to music in education, and leadership in their advocacy for music that this group of people possessed—still young but already leaders in the music industry. I felt so honored and proud to be among them.Among my current colleagues were Tanya Witek and David Wallace, both of whom are currently senior teaching artists at the New York Philharmonic. Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum and Paola Prestini, in addition to being N.Y.P. teaching artists, are cofounders of Vision Into Art, a collaborative, interdisciplinary arts performing group. Paola is also the newly appointed director of education at the American Composers Orchestra. I also saw Jessica Meyer, who is the founder of a new music group called counter)induction, in addition to being active as a teaching artist. And across the room, I spotted Jihea Hong, an exceptional pianist who received a Juilliard Summer Grant to perform at (and raise funds for) orphanages all over Korea two summers ago. Jonah Sirota, violist from the Chiara String Quartet, was also present. His quartet has done many educational residencies and master classes throughout the U.S. There were many more people whose names I would love to mention, all of whom are doing fantastic and innovative things in the music world.The amazing thing to me was that this very diverse group of people had all been Morse Fellows! Being in the Morse Fellowship Program not only helped guide them to become better performers, musicians, and teaching artists, but it also motivated them to become entrepreneurs, leaders, and creators of exciting arts organizations and performing groups. Many of these artists are involved in arts education and outreach organizations. The Morse Fellowship Program not only provided us with tools to succeed as teaching artists, it allowed us to "think outside of the box" of just being performers. It gave us ideas about how to interactively engage our audiences, effectively share our knowledge and skills with others—and most importantly, it taught us how to advocate for our own art. These very tools are absolutely essential skills for musicians nowadays.The reunion itself was a beautiful event. Three current students who are Morse Fellows—violinists Alissa Hendrickson and Ann Miller, and violist Julianne Marie—performed Mozart's Divertimento, K. 239, and also demonstrated their skills as teaching artists. I was very proud of them, as this was a pretty daunting audience! Then former fellows David Wallace, Jonah Sirota, Airi Yoshioka, and Tiffany Kuo shared how the Morse Fellowship has impacted their lives. As a direct result of the program, they are now active leaders in arts in education.The most moving part of the event occurred when the Morses were presented with a beautiful gift from Juilliard: a framed photo of the current Morse Fellows. The whole audience stood up and applauded to show their gratitude to them for providing such a wonderful and educational program as the Morse Fellowship.I found the reunion memorable, and was really inspired to see what my friends are up to these days. I know that the Morse Fellowship Program has personally affected me, and prompts me to be an active advocate for the arts, to reach out to as many diverse audiences as possible, and share my knowledge with young audiences in particular. As David Wallace mentioned in his speech, the impact of this program has created a ripple effect, reaching hundreds and thousands of people. I hope that it will continue to affect thousands more.Cellist Wendy Law earned an Artist Diploma from Juilliard last May.
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