Juilliard’s 120th commencement ceremony, celebrating the class of 2025, took place on Saturday, May 24 at 11:30am ET in David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center. The ceremony included remarks by school leadership, the conferral of degrees and honorary doctorates, and artistic interludes.

This year Juilliard conferred honorary doctorates upon Gustavo Dudamel, music and artistic director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra and incoming music and artistic director of the New York Philharmonic; Alicia Graf Mack, dean and director of Juilliard Dance and incoming artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater; Marsha Norman, Pulitzer- and Tony-winning playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and co-director of Juilliard’s playwriting program from 1994 to 2020; Masaaki Suzuki, organist, harpsichordist, principal conductor of Yale Schola Cantorum, and frequent collaborator with Juilliard’s Historical Performance program; Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation and president of the board of the National Gallery of Art; and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (DMA ’75, composition), first female-identifying composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music.  

Read more about the honorary doctorate recipients here.