Juilliard School Of Music

Chad Alexander and his bassoon have been accepted to the Juilliard School of Music for the performing arts. After an unsuccessful audition three years ago, the 22-year-old Thousand Oaks High School graduate recently passed on his second attempt and will begin classes in September. Alexander has been playing the bassoon since he made the jump from clarinet back in junior high school. It was a move, he said, that surprised his young classmates.

Ara Guzelimian, senior director and artistic advisor to Carnegie Hall, has been named dean-designate of the Juilliard School in New York. The school says that Guzelimian, 52, will start July 1, after a six-month overlap with the current dean, Stephen Clapp, who is stepping down to teach full time. Guzelimian will continue at Carnegie as an artistic consultant and as host and producer of the "Making Music" series at Zankel Hall, the 599-seat venue beneath the main auditorium.

There's a mob scene outside Room 530 at the Juilliard School. A line of students clutching violins snakes down the hall for what looks like a four-hour wait. But at times the line has been longer. Sooner or later, serious student violinists will end up as a pupil of Dorothy DeLay, the instructor who has virtually cornered the violin-teaching market. Her students regularly win top prizes at competitions, get snatched up by major managements and are launched on the high-stakes concert circuit.

A commodities trader who secretly amassed manuscripts handwritten by the titans of classical music has donated his collection to the Juilliard School, the conservatory announced Tuesday. The 139-piece collection ranges from Purcell's opera "Dido and Aeneas," dating to the 1680s, to works by Schnittke written in the 1990s. Also included are works by J.S. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Liszt, Wagner, Mahler and Stravinsky, among others.

A commodities trader who secretly amassed manuscripts handwritten by the titans of classical music has donated his collection to the Juilliard School, the conservatory announced Tuesday. The 139-piece collection ranges from Purcell's opera "Dido and Aeneas," dating to the 1680s, to works by Schnittke written in the 1990s. Also included are works by J.S. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Liszt, Wagner, Mahler and Stravinsky, among others.

Three weeks after Christopher Reeve's death, his family and friends celebrated him Friday at a place that was central to his life: the Juilliard School, where he first honed his acting skills and later returned to receive an honorary doctorate.

Ara Guzelimian, senior director and artistic advisor to Carnegie Hall, has been named dean-designate of the Juilliard School in New York. The school says that Guzelimian, 52, will start July 1, after a six-month overlap with the current dean, Stephen Clapp, who is stepping down to teach full time. Guzelimian will continue at Carnegie as an artistic consultant and as host and producer of the "Making Music" series at Zankel Hall, the 599-seat venue beneath the main auditorium.

In those early days after we met 5 1/2 years ago, when Nathaniel Ayers slept on the streets of skid row, he was a dreamer. He'd play a two-string violin at the feet of the Beethoven statue and imagine a day when he would figure out how to get the two missing strings, or a day when he might visit a concert hall or play well enough to draw an audience. But he never would have guessed that one day he'd be invited to the White House to meet the president and to perform at a celebration commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act. "It's the most incredible thing I ever could have imagined," Mr. Ayers said a few weeks ago on hearing of the invitation through his sister, Jennifer.

Talk Time: David Frost has been wanting to sit Robin Williams down for a TV interview and now he has found the time and the place. Williams will be in New York on May 17 to receive an honorary degree from the Juilliard School of Music. Frost will talk to him then for the May 29 " . . . Talking With David Frost" on PBS.

Vincent Persichetti, head of the composition department at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City, died Thursday night at his home after what was reported as a brief illness. He was 72. Persichetti was the author of more than 150 works, including nine symphonies and numerous works for chorus, bands and solo instruments.

Three weeks after Christopher Reeve's death, his family and friends celebrated him Friday at a place that was central to his life: the Juilliard School, where he first honed his acting skills and later returned to receive an honorary doctorate.

Chad Alexander and his bassoon have been accepted to the Juilliard School of Music for the performing arts. After an unsuccessful audition three years ago, the 22-year-old Thousand Oaks High School graduate recently passed on his second attempt and will begin classes in September. Alexander has been playing the bassoon since he made the jump from clarinet back in junior high school. It was a move, he said, that surprised his young classmates.

There's a mob scene outside Room 530 at the Juilliard School. A line of students clutching violins snakes down the hall for what looks like a four-hour wait. But at times the line has been longer. Sooner or later, serious student violinists will end up as a pupil of Dorothy DeLay, the instructor who has virtually cornered the violin-teaching market. Her students regularly win top prizes at competitions, get snatched up by major managements and are launched on the high-stakes concert circuit.

Morris Brenner, 85, a renowned violist associated with Hollywood studios. Brenner was a graduate of New York's Juilliard School of Music and taught there for several years. Moving to Los Angeles, he became a music director for Warner Bros. and a music producer with MGM, working with Elizabeth Taylor, John Garfield and other stars. Brenner was the founder and director of the Vine Street Musical Workshop. On May 3 in Los Angeles.

I enjoyed John G. Zawadzinski's article of Jan. 28 on Mieczyslaw Horszowski (and attended his Jan. 31 recital at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion). However, Mr. Zawadzinski incorrectly identifies the Juilliard School as the Juilliard School of Music. The school dropped "of Music" from the name when drama and dance divisions were added and the school moved to Lincoln Center. BETH SUSSMAN Beverly Hills