By CHRISTOPHER MOSSEY

Juilliard will be celebrating its 100th birthday "on the move" in March. As part of the School's ongoing anniversary season, the Juilliard Dance Ensemble, the Group 35 actors, the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra, and the Juilliard Orchestra are crisscrossing the United States between March 2 and 26 in the School's first-ever national tour of all three artistic divisions. All told, these energetic groups will present 27 performances across 7 cities and in 13 performance venues. Most important, thousands of people filling the seats of those venues will be able to enjoy the magic of Juilliard for the first time. The tour is a gift from Juilliard to the nation.

James DePreist, director of conducting and orchestral studies, will lead the Juilliard Orchestra on a tour of the United States. (Photo by Nan Melville)

The domestic centennial tour in March is the result of years of artistic and logistical preparation. When plans for the centennial began in 2002, President Joseph W. Polisi raised the idea of a national tour that would showcase all three of Juilliard's artistic divisions outside of their home turf. By 2004, funding was in place for the tour through generous grants from Lehman Brothers and Juilliard trustees Bradley Jack, Sidney Knafel, Stephanie McClelland, and Lester Morse. Sights were soon set on Chicago and Los Angeles as the anchor cities for the tour. And since then, virtually every artistic and administrative department at Juilliard has contributed in one important way or another to creating as professional an experience as possible for the tour's stars—the talented student artists of Juilliard.

The performing ensembles will travel separately from one another on tour. However, the schedules of the orchestra, dance ensemble, and the drama productions will overlap in Chicago and Los Angeles, creating interesting synergies for local audiences. Each ensemble is touring with the personnel needed to present the students in out-of-town performances of the same quality New York audiences have come to expect. The Juilliard Dance Ensemble, for example, tours in a group of 51: there are 32 dancers, 6 musicians, and 13 staff and crew. The Jazz Ensemble's tour group consists of 18 musicians and 3 artistic personnel. The 16 actors of Group 35 are joined by no less than 17 staff and crew. The Juilliard Orchestra comprises 96 musicians, the conductor, and a piano soloist, and is supported by 9 staff and crew members. With about 210 young artists and supporting personnel on four separate tours, it is easy to imagine the complex, intersecting plans for air flights, trucking, hotels, production, and public relations that needed to be developed on top of an already busy centennial season in New York.

All of this intense preparation will fade into the background when the artists take the spotlight to present their talents on stages across America. Below is a summary of the tour performances, listed by group in chronological order. For information about tickets, see the Calendar.

Diverse Jazz Repertory in California, South Carolina, and Wisconsin

Jazz heralds the opening of the March centennial tour. Led by Artistic Director Victor Goines, the Juilliard Jazz Orchestra will present a program titled 100 Years of Jazz in America, featuring works by such jazz artists as Benny Carter, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Golson, Stan Kenton, Chico O'Farril, Sy Oliver, and Leon Rene. Jazz's centennial tour itinerary opens with a March 2 concert at the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center in Appleton, Wis., with ensuing performances on March 5 at the California Center for the Arts in Escondido, Calif., and a performance and workshop at the Washington Center for the Performing Arts in Aiken, S.C. on March 10 and 11.

Juilliard Orchestra in Great Spaces Across the U.S.

Read a related article on Joseph Kalichstein.

After receiving enthusiastic critical response this season in Europe and in Washington, D.C., the Juilliard Orchestra completes its extensive centennial touring program with five performances over eight days in March. James DePreist, Juilliard's director of conducting and orchestral studies, conducts the orchestra in a program of William Schuman's New England Triptych, Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 (with Juilliard faculty member Joseph Kalichstein as soloist), and Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra. Following a New York performance of this program on March 1 in Avery Fisher Hall as part of Lincoln Center's Great Performers series, the tour brings the orchestra to Chicago Symphony Center (March 5), Dallas's Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center (March 7), the Irvine Barclay Theater in Orange County, Calif. (March 9), L.A.'s Walt Disney Concert Hall (March 11), and San Diego's Copley Symphony Hall (March 12). Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 17 is substituted for the Beethoven in Chicago and Orange County.

Shakespeare and Company

Making a rare appearance outside New York City, the Drama Division, which heads to Los Angeles and Chicago, will showcase the Group 35 actors in two productions: Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Joe Dowling, and Marlowe's Edward II, directed by Sam Gold. Already well-received earlier this fall at Juilliard, the highly-imaginative production of A Midsummer Night's Dream includes songs in pop and hip-hop idioms adapted by composer Keith Thomas. The tour of the Group 35 actors opens in Los Angeles at the REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney Cal Arts Theater), in the Walt Disney Hall complex, with performances beginning March 3. Performances at Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art begin on March 17.

Cutting-Edge Dance in Chicago and Los Angeles

The Juilliard Dance Ensemble will be last out of the gate from Juilliard and will present arguably the most cutting-edge performances of the centennial tour. The program comprises two works performed in last season's Spring Repertory concert and a newly commissioned work: William Forsythe's Limb's Theorem Part III, Mark Morris's New Love Song Waltzes, and Adam Hougland's work titled Watershed, commissioned by Juilliard and set to a new score by Juilliard faculty member Christopher Rouse. Joined by members of the Juilliard Vocal Arts Department, the dance tour opens in Chicago's new Joan W. and Irving B. Harris Theater for Music and Dance, for three performances (March 17-19), and continues in Los Angeles for four performances (March 23-26) at the newly opened Glorya Kaufman Hall on the campus of U.C.L.A.

Christopher Mossey is director of centennial planning.