Advice for Incoming Students: Max Tan

A Community of Friends, Artists, and Visionaries

Congratulations to all the incoming students! Welcome to a world-class facility for practice, study, and performance, where you'll find world-renowned faculty members and an incredible proximity to the center of classical arts in New York City.

What I’ve come to realize, first in getting my master’s and now embarking on the second year of my Artist Diploma studies, is that in addition to all these amazing offerings, I thrive on having a community of supportive friends, artists, and visionaries—that’s as important as being fully immersed in the exploration of one’s craft.

Some of my most memorable moments at Juilliard have included inspiring performances with friends as well as concerts I’ve really enjoyed attending. Others include finding a close-knit and supportive group of friends and then making new ones with instrumentalists or artists I don’t usually meet. I often find myself thinking back to singular moments in lessons or studio class where artistic directions are clarified and there are others in academic courses, such as former President Polisi’s class on constitutional law and the arts. Juilliard offers tremendous support and opportunities if you make a point of looking for them.

In addition to your lessons and schoolwork, treat your experience at school as a sampling of possible career outcomes and life beyond Juilliard’s walls. Most likely, you will never be at another institution that has enough solo recital, chamber music, and orchestral performance offerings to fill your entire year. What will stay with you are the friends you make, the teachers you meet, and the experiences you share. In fact, some of my favorite memories have been conversations with friends about how artists can shape the world we live in, how our way of perception influences our art and our personal lives, and how authenticity is a question in music, individual identity, and politics.

I’m writing this at a turbulent time in which politics have chipped away at the emotional and practical framework of our daily lives. To be dedicated to the arts must mean something more than what we can express individually with our votes at the ballot box. We must be so committed to the thorough understanding of our craft—be it music, dance, drama, or otherwise—and the literature we perform, so that we share what it is that we love about it. We must know what we love, so that others can know what to love about it, too. No one else will if we don’t.

This summer, Artist Diploma Candidate Max Tan (Pre-College '11; MM '17, violin) was a guest artist at the Sunset Chamberfest in Los Angeles and a returning fellow at the Ravinia Festival Steans Music Institute; he also made his European recital debut at the Musical Landscapes of Tuscany Festival in collaboration with the 8 Cellists of Torino