Retiree Roundup

The following faculty and staff members have recently retired or are about to retire.

Baruch Arnon

Longtime piano faculty member Baruch Arnon, who was born in the former Yugoslavia and grew up in Israel, earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Juilliard in 1964 and 1965. After becoming a teaching fellow in 1972, he joined the keyboard studies faculty 40 years ago and joined the Graduate Studies Faculty in 2002. Asked in the Journal a number of years ago if students could only remember one thing from his teaching, what would it be, Baruch replied, “Teaching is loving. You must love what you are doing and who you are doing it to.”

Caryn Doktor

Caryn Doktor, who retires at the end of this year, first joined the Juilliard staff in 1970 as assistant to the controller, working here on and off until returning for good in 1984 to establish a personnel office. Over the subsequent 35 years, her title evolved from personnel director to director of human resources. In a Journal interview, she said that her favorite Juilliard memory was, not surprisingly, meeting her husband, Paul Doktor, who joined the viola faculty in 1971.

Scott Holden and Martha Sterner

Scott Holden joined the Juilliard staff 25 years ago as director of office services; his wife, Martha Sterner, came to Juilliard four years later and over the years worked in the registrar’s office, the president’s office, and the development office. They worked mostly behind the scenes to keep all sorts of things on track, from mailings to meetings and memorial lists. In addition to being a Juilliard couple, Scott and Martha were Juilliard parents— their older daughter, Julia, is a Pre-College alumna. And they were tireless attenders of all manner of student performances.

Margo Lamb

Broadway diva, belly dancer, holiday-rememberer, recital-attender, candy-provider, cat-lover, always willing shoulder for crying on—Margo Lamb, whose tiny switchboard booth occupied an outsize place in the hearts of hundreds of students, staff, and faculty members, retired in June after 35 years. In September 2004, Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum wrote in the Journal, “there are some people whom you pass, day in and day out, with an occasional smile or nod but very little connection. Margo is different. At a deep level, she is real, and everyone knows it. She exudes love and humanity toward the community around her, an attitude toward life that values people.”

Maria Rojas

Maria Rojas retired in a year in which she celebrated two important milestones—30 years after starting to teach theory in Pre-College, and 10 years after becoming the harpsichord tuner, which means that she tuned all of the school’s two-dozen historical keyboards. The latter job coincided— though not coincidentally—with the establishment of the Historical Performance program. For the last decade, Maria has often arrived before 7am to make sure the school’s harpsichords are ready for whatever array of operas, orchestra concerts, student and faculty lessons and recitals, and any other needs—adding up to approximately 950 tunings annually.

Helen Taynton

Helen Taynton began directing the internship program in 1984. It had begun seven years earlier as an inexpensive way to enlarge the production staff while providing young people with professional experience and a platform from which to launch their careers. Now transformed into the professional apprentice program, it offers administrative as well as technical apprenticeships. Under Helen's tutelage, participants have ended up all over the world, including many at Juilliard. In the last school year alone, there were almost 60 former participants working full- or part-time here, from stage management and wigs and makeup to Pre-College, Information Technology, and the president’s office.