#WeMetAtJuilliard: Renaissance, Lazarus-Ittelson, and Samuel-Ho

The Juilliard community is built of relationships forged during years of a shared life of creating, performing, living, and dreaming together.

Here are more of the stories that you’ve sent us. Do you have a story to tell? Reach out at [email protected] or post to Facebook, Instagram, or X with #WeMetAtJuilliard.

Renaissance Quartet

Jameel Martin (Pre-College ’13; BM ’17; viola) wrote about the ensemble he co-founded in 2021 with fellow alums Randall Goosby (BM ’18, MM ’20, Artist Diploma ’22, violin), Jeremiah Blacklow (MM ’22, violin), and Daniel Hass (BM ’17, MM ’21, cello)

The Renaissance Quartet got its start at Juilliard, where Randall, Jeremiah, Daniel, and I first formed a piano quintet, with Brian Billion (MM ’18, piano), in 2017. It culminated that spring with our performing Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-Flat Major in Peter Jay Sharp Theater, set to choreography by Mark Morris, for Spring Dances. Juilliard’s artist-as-citizen mantra remains an organizing principle in our praxis as a quartet: to present a diverse repertoire of classic, underrepresented, and new works, furthering the reclamation, redefinition, and continuation of a musical tradition that belongs to us all.

Bruce Lazarus and Mary Ittelson

Composer and pianist Bruce Lazarus (Pre-College ’74; BM ’78, MM ’79, composition), the Joffrey Ballet music director, wrote about his ongoing conversation and friendship with arts consultant Mary Ittelson (’76, dance)

Mary Ittelson and I met at Juilliard in front of our adjacent fourth-floor lockers. We started an animated conversation about dance and music, philosophy, and science, and continued it over coffee at Mike’s Restaurant (there’s an Apple Store there now). Post-Juilliard, we continued our friendship in a dance-music improvisation ensemble called Crossroad and at the Northwestern University dance program, where we collaborated on dance and theater works. We then went our separate ways but stayed in touch, enjoying the occasional visit, letter, and email. Then, in 2015, Mary commissioned me to compose a song about friendship for voice and piano to commemorate a significant birthday. I was happy to oblige! “Friendship Song” for soprano and piano was recorded at Parma/Navona Records and is scheduled for release on an anthology of American vocal music. Who would have guessed that our fourth-floor conversation would continue for more than 45 years?

Brent Samuel and Shirley Ho

Brent Samuel (MM ’95, cello) is a cellist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic

I met my wife, Shirley Ho (BM ’96, MM ’98, viola), at Juilliard. We were casual friends at first, having the occasional meal together or bumping into each other in the hallways. But over the holiday break, we started writing back and forth quite unexpectedly, using our new AOL email accounts, and we started dating when we got back to school. We got married after moving to LA two years later. When Shirley passed away from liver cancer in March 2021, I found that one of the most difficult things was filling the hours between 8 and 11pm, a time when we used to sit and talk, watch TV, plan our schedules for the next few days or months, or discuss our two children. The solution I found for filling those suddenly empty, debilitating hours was to pick up the phone and call school friends. Some of them I had been in regular contact with during her illness, and some I hadn’t spoken to for 10-plus years, but they were always happy to chat. We would talk about anything—school memories, current activities, and whatever work gossip we could both share. We would often not even talk about Shirley—I think they knew that some days I needed to talk about something else—anything else. I realize now that because of the time change between LA and New York, I was calling many of these friends very late at night, but not one of them ever complained. So, in my three short years at Juilliard, I met Shirley, but I also met many people who would keep me sane after she was gone.