2021 Convocation Remarks

 

September 1, 2021

As we begin this week, the world around us is in a state of intense upheaval. And my message to you today is to not discount that upheaval. From the suffering in the wake of Hurricane Ida over the last days, to the tragic circumstances around the world from COVID to the momentous end of a 20 year engagement in Afghanistan, we are in the middle of many storms.

But I believe that an understanding and recognition of this moment and all its gravity allows us an opportunity. It's an opportunity to recommit to our focus, despite the noise and uncertainty of this time. Because I believe, as I think we all do, that art plays an essential role in humanity's history, and that the art that plays the role most successfully is that which is most potent in form and in execution and in content. We've seen it today and we believe that. And then the importance of fulfilling our collective mission of artistic education is all the more clear. And as it relates to our work here at Juilliard, all of our work here at Juilliard, we recognize that the strength that we build in our artistry is commensurate, it is determinant, in our impact, whether it's in the concert hall or the theater or in public life. That's what we set about building each September. This year, like all years, but perhaps even more, it will require energy and ambition, and the commitment, concentration, and focus to fulfill that mission.

The year ahead of us now - these next nine months - will pass quickly. I think we've built a new appreciation of time though. We must maintain that and nurture it with steady focus and ambition. These days can be so full of value and of nourishment, and if we covet each hour, we will find ourselves transported at the end of this school year to a place of greater capability and greater possibility. And that will be the plan for all that follows.

That is not however a given. It takes what the education pioneer Howard Gardner calls ‘good work.’ He defines ‘good work’ as having three essential elements. First, excellent in quality. Second, carried out ethically. And third, engaging to its practitioners and its audiences. But each of these must exist in tandem so that you might achieve that true transformational education, that work that we're trying to do. We've seen role models on this stage over and over again today, with Anthony McGill leading us in the very, very beginning in that invocation. Or I think of our friend, Yo-Yo Ma, as an archetypal model of good work. He navigates the world. He makes the choices, whether he's playing at the border or giving away songs of comfort or finding ways to educate in every moment. It's all ‘good work.’ And engagement is paramount. Yo-Yo says the whole point is that something he loves, that he cherishes, lives in somebody else.

If we think about it, how lucky we really are, how truly privileged, to be able to study and practice and exist among others here who are so passionate about the same things. Let's take that opportunity and let's learn to sharpen our voices. Let's think about what it actually means to be excellent, how it's tied to being aware of our responsibility to our communities and our art forms and to each other, and then how we can be most inclusive in our engagement. That's the charge. ‘Good work.’

So now we continue with knowledge hard won, our resilience tested, and a renewed ambition for the future. Let's meet this new school year, all of us, with the highest of expectations and the highest of standards for ourselves, embracing those tenets of ‘good work’ as individuals and as a community.

Let's commit to that possibility within those tenets: excellence and quality, carried out ethically, with full engagement. Let's continue the conversation of tradition and innovation that we have with each other and with the world.

 

Onward to this school year.