The Juilliard School: Childhood Dreams Bashed and Stuff

Juilliard hats pictured from an angle that makes them look like Harvard hats instead.

Juilliard. I can see the name written in gold or silver or some precious metal. The most prestigious music school in the country. The school where 100% of students are guaranteed happiness and success. Or at least that's what I thought growing up.

Not that I thought about it very much. It was too glorious, too prestigious for me to waste my time on. Even as a small child I never had any illusions about being exceptionally talented or the slightest bit extraordinary; if anyone had mentioned my name in connection with the holy title of Juilliard, I probably would have laughed in their faces. It was like Harvard, Yale, and the rest of the Ivy League: too perfect and high for a girl who was merely ordinary. So the school lived in an unexplored haze of glory.

Recently, I had the opportunity to visit this illustrious, vague place. You can imagine I was intrigued by the prospect. My first genuine college tour and it was going to be of the magnificent Juilliard School. History, amazing performers, a place worth dreaming about whether you were seriously considering going into the performing arts or not...

It wasn't quite what I was expecting.

The first thing to strike me was the architecture of the building itself. It might seem like a trivial thing, but it was intrinsic to the way I thought of Juilliard. Presentation is so important to the atmosphere of a place and the attitudes of its people. If you'd asked me three weeks ago to describe how I imagined Juilliard, I would have immediately described dark marble columns, somber neutral colors, and white light spilling through tall windows. The kind of space that makes you feel small and reverent, akin to castles and monasteries. Full of history and questions. Almost the opposite of what Juilliard's actually like.

Juilliard School is entirely contained in one building, which makes sense, considering it's in the middle of New York City, New York. Despite having been around since 1910, no part of its construction screams of its history. The latest renovation was completed in 2009, and you can tell. The style is sophisticated and modern, complete with enormous windows several stories high, skylights, metal staircases that come out of nowhere, and walls that aren't always straight. It's bright and clean cut with lots of white, blue, and light gray. Layout wise, there seemed to be few straight lines. I was never quite sure where we were in the building, even what story, because there were so many staircases in the most random of places and the hallways weren't consistent from level to level or even one half of the level to the other.

Don't get me wrong. It was a gorgeous and fascinating building, but it was completely different from what I was anticipating. It didn't make you feel like going there would make you part of something bigger than yourself, or if it did, it did so in a purely scientific way instead of a divine one. Like a business or city versus mountains and trees and skies. Not quite what I'd imagined for this masterful school of music, an art which was described by a certain honors choir director as "the reflection of heaven and earth in sound."

Weird as it may sound, the school was also far more arts focused than I'd thought it would be. I mean, I know it's a conservatory and everything, so they have to focus primarily on the performing arts, but I've always thought of brilliant classical musicianship as something that should walk hand in hand with the mind of an ingenious scholar. But unless Juilliard students choose to take advantage of the dual enrollment program it has with Columbia, they only need to take a couple of classes outside of their chosen discipline. So my long held stereotype has kind of been brought down a couple notches and maybe Mozart wouldn't have made an outstanding physicist.

Then there were the alumni. Juilliard School is one of the best known music schools in the country. And why is it so well known? For years I assumed it was because all the famous people came from there. Then I got a little wiser and learned that not all the famous people graduated from Juilliard, but surely most of them did, right? Or at least a ton?

I can't deny that their alumni are incredibly skilled. I wasn't able to see any performances or anything, and besides, those alumni went to one of the top performing arts schools in the country. Of course they're talented. And I'm sure a great deal of them are super well known in classical circles and on Broadway, but since the only famous classical musician I can name off the top of my head is Yo-Yo Ma* and my knowledge of Broadway stars extends no further than Idina Menzel and Kristen Chenoweth, I'm really not the person you should be talking to about them. Yet I still expected to recognize at least more than ten of their alumni/people who attended the school for at least one semester**. But I found nine. Only nine familiar names stuck out to me when I read their list of alums on Wikipedia.

Juilliard wasn't entirely a dream crushing let down, though.

Everyone dressed in a classy manner. No t-shirts and sweatpants. Not that I have anything against t-shirts and sweatpants, but when I walk into a fancy school it's weirdly refreshing to see people presenting themselves like they attend a fancy school. I'm not talking button-ups and slacks. I'm talking more along the lines of I-put-thought-into-what-I'm-wearing-today-because-I-wanted-to-look-nice-and-professional kind of outfits. It showed they were attentive and had a basic eye for design.

Oh! And I can't forget the atmosphere of the tour itself - the small group of prospective students and parents. It was visibly multicultural: Asian and African American, Caucasian and, if I remember correctly, at least one family of Middle Eastern descent. Plus, our guide herself was from Paris, France.

This was topped off and completed by the one teenager who lurked near the back of the crowd with his dad. Their snarky expressions, whispered commentary, and muffled laughter could have come straight out of a novel. Clearly someone was under the impression that he was better than the rest of us. It was perfect.

While the Juilliard School didn't fully live up to my vaguely imagined idealization, it's still a great music and performing arts conservatory. Personally, I have no intention of going there as an undergraduate, but it sounded like they have an even better graduate program, so maybe... someday... who knows? Once the bubble of hazy daydreams pops and the reality shows through, things seem more real, more attainable. Maybe I have a fighting chance.

Just kidding. Of course I don't have a chance of going to Juilliard. What kind of ridiculousness is that?


*Yo-Yo Ma did go to Juilliard, so they got that covered.
**Miles Davis attended the school for a single semester.