A senior director and the artistic advisor to Carnegie Hall since 1988, will become dean of The Juilliard School beginning on July 1, 2007. Announcement of the appointment was made on August 23 by President Joseph W. Polisi. Mr. Guzelimian will work as dean-designate from January through June 2007, during a transition period with the current dean, Stephen Clapp, who is stepping down from the post to return to full-time teaching at the School.

Mr. Guzelimian, 52, plans to continue his association with Carnegie Hall through the end of the current season, as an artistic consultant on special projects and as host and producer of the Making Music series at Zankel Hall. Dean Clapp will continue at Juilliard as a member of the violin and chamber music faculties. He also teaches violin in the Pre-College Division.

Ara Guzelimian will become Juilliard's dean in July 2007. (Photo courtesy of Carnegie Hall)

President Polisi said of this appointment, "We are thrilled to have Ara Guzelimian join The Juilliard School as its dean and to play a key artistic and educational role with us. Ara is the perfect person to help guide the School in artistic directions which we are poised to pursue in music, dance and drama.

"When Stephen Clapp told me over a year ago that he was planning to retire as dean, we prevailed upon him to stay through the centennial and have now asked him to stay on through this transition period, to which he graciously consented. We are deeply grateful to him for his 12 years as Juilliard's dean and look forward to him continuing as a faculty member in violin and chamber music."

Before taking on the deanship in 1994 from James Sloan Allen, who had been dean since 1992, Mr. Clapp, a Juilliard alumnus, was an associate dean at the School from 1991 to 1994, supervising all orchestral and chamber music activities.

He has been a member of the violin and chamber music faculties since 1987. Previously he served as dean of the Aspen Music Festival and School, and acting dean of the Oberlin Conservatory.

Stephen Clapp, dean since 1994, is stepping down to return to full-time teaching.

"The privilege of serving as dean to the entire Juilliard community—students, faculty, and staff—for these 12 years has been a great joy," Mr. Clapp said. "Although a latecomer to administration, I have been a violin teacher since age 14, and intend to continue in that most rewarding activity, devoting time and creative energy in years ahead to my class of Juilliard violin students. I thank President Polisi, a genius leader and stellar individual, for these most satisfying years working together."

As a senior director and the artistic advisor to Carnegie Hall Mr. Guzelimian's responsibilities include program planning and development, as well as the creation of a wide range of audience education programs. He hosts and produces the acclaimed Making Music composer series at Carnegie Hall, which has included concerts devoted to such composers as John Adams, Pierre Boulez, Hans Werner Henze, Osvaldo Golijov, Joan Tower, Meredith Monk, George Perle, Steven Mackey, and many others. In addition, he has given lectures at the invitation of the Cleveland Orchestra, the Salzburg Festival and Salzburg Easter Festival, and the Jerusalem Music Center, where he was on the faculty of the 2000 International Chamber Music Encounter, led by Isaac Stern.

As a writer and music critic, he has contributed to such publications as Musical America, Opera Quarterly, Opera News, Symphony magazine, The New York Times, Record Geijutsu magazine (Tokyo), program books of the Salzburg and the Helsinki Festivals, and the journal for the IRCAM center in Paris. He is editor of Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and Society (Pantheon Books, 2002), a collection of dialogues between Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said.

Mr. Guzelimian has also been active as a radio producer, with projects for Swedish Radio, Minnesota Public Radio, WFMT/Chicago, KERA/Dallas, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. He was heard this season as an intermission host on the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts and as a guest host on Minnesota Public Radio's Saint Paul Sunday.

In September 2003, Mr. Guzelimian was awarded the title Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French government for his contributions to French music and culture.

Of his appointment as dean of The Juilliard School, he said: "I am delighted and honored to be appointed to this most distinguished school. For most of my professional life, I have had the privilege of working closely with many great artists who received their formative training at Juilliard. After eight enormously rewarding years at Carnegie Hall, a musical mecca which represents a culmination of the aspirations of young musicians, it now feels very appropriate to focus my work on the training of a new generation of artists. I look forward to working closely with Joseph Polisi, the enormously talented young actors, dancers, and musicians, as well as the remarkable faculty, many of whom are already longstanding friends and colleagues."