Jazz has certainly been getting a lot of attention lately. There have been several ongoing efforts to introduce jazz to a wide audience over the past few years, most notably the recent PBS Ken Burns special. The very notion of creating an institute for the learning of jazz, or of any art, is in itself a paradox. Art is something which, in its basic nature, defies categorization and institutionalization. This is especially true with jazz, since it has only been established as an accepted performing art in recent years and does not have a great history of pedagogy the way classical music does. Therefore, when I enrolled in the brand new Institute of Jazz Studies at The Juilliard School this year, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I was excited but also wary that perhaps jazz would not be accepted by an institution that has a reputation of being somewhat conservative.

What I found was that, despite all of the difficulties and pressures of putting together such a program, the administration here has done an amazing job. This is mostly due to the stellar faculty that has been assembled for us. Not anywhere else in the world could I have regular master classes with Wynton Marsalis as well as 12 hours a semester of private lessons with Kenny Barron. Living in New York has given me the opportunity to frequent the town’s numerous jazz clubs, where, almost every night, amazing performances are taking place. I was also greatly impressed upon arriving by the great disciplinary diversity of Juilliard. In early September I was given an opportunity to record the soundtrack for the fourth-year drama production Riff Raff. Two weeks later the Juiliard Jazz Orchestra made its debut in a joint concert with the Juilliard Symphony. Since then there have been numerous collaborations-both formal and informal-among jazz, classical, dance, and drama.

There may be a sentiment among some students at Juilliard that the jazz students are spoiled, that we are taking advantage of a free ride and are not truly deserving members of the Juilliard community. This may be founded on some elements of truth: at the present time we are being helped tremendously by the School, in comparison to the other students. But we also put a lot of blind faith in Juilliard when we agreed to join this program a year ago. We agreed to embrace an unfamiliar and potentially unfriendly community in order to establish how strongly we believe in jazz as a performing art deserving to be taught at all the world’s great institutions. We would not have taken this risk if we did not feel extremely passionate about being a part of the Juilliard community. Many aspects of the jazz program have not gone as planned and we have all had to make sacrifices, both musical and personal. However, I think I speak for all of us when I say that we look forward to becoming a more and more integral part of Juilliard community.

Adam Birnbaum is a pianist who is a member of the Juilliard Jazz Quartet.

Voice Box is a student opinion column appearing regularly in The Juilliard Journal. To submit a column for consideration, please e-mail it to journal@juilliard.edu with “Voice Box” in the subject heading, and include a phone number where you can be reached. Columns should cover topics of interest to the Juilliard community, and be about 500 words.