Ara Guzelimian to Leave Carnegie for Juilliard

Ara Guzelimian to Leave Carnegie for Juilliard

Ara Guzelimian will become the dean of The Juilliard School effective July 1, 2007.

Written By

NewMusicBox Staff



Ara Guzelimian

[Ed. Note: The following news item was culled from a press release issued by The Juilliard School that was made public at 3:00 p.m.]

Joseph W. Polisi, President of The Juilliard School, announced today that Ara Guzelimian will become the dean of The Juilliard School effective July 1, 2007. He will work as dean-designate from January through June 2007, during a transition period with Stephen Clapp, the current dean who will be stepping down from the post at the end of June 2007, to return to full-time teaching at The Juilliard School.

Guzelimian, who has been a senior director and the artistic advisor to Carnegie Hall since September 1998, will continue his association with Carnegie through the 2006-07 season as an artistic consultant on special projects and as host/producer of the Making Music series at Zankel Hall. Stephen Clapp will continue at The Juilliard School as a member of the violin and chamber music faculties.

Joseph W. Polisi said of this appointment, “We are thrilled to have Ara Guzelimian join The Juilliard School as its dean and to play a key artistic and educational role with us. Ara is the perfect person to help guide the school in artistic directions which we are poised to pursue in music, dance, and drama.” Dr. Polisi continued, “When Stephen Clapp told me over a year ago that he was planning to retire as dean, we prevailed upon him to stay through the centennial and have now asked him to stay on through this transition period, to which he graciously consented. We are deeply grateful to him for his twelve years as Juilliard’s dean and look forward to him continuing as a faculty member.”

Ara Guzelimian stated, “I am delighted and honored to be appointed to this most distinguished school. For most of my professional life, I have had the privilege of working closely with many great artists who received their formative training at The Juilliard School. After eight enormously rewarding years at Carnegie Hall, a musical mecca which represents a culmination of the aspirations of young musicians, it now feels very appropriate to focus my work on the training of a new generation of artists. I look forward to working closely with Joseph Polisi, the enormously talented young actors, dancers, and musicians, as well as the remarkable faculty, many of whom are already longstanding friends and colleagues.”

In response to the appointment, Clive Gillinson, executive and artistic director of Carnegie Hall, commented, “In his eight years as artistic advisor, Ara Guzelimian has made a remarkable contribution to Carnegie Hall. We all fully understand his wish to move into the field of education for the next phase of his life, and in this context he could not be joining a more wonderful organization than The Juilliard School, for which we all have the greatest respect and affection. While we are sad that he is leaving Carnegie Hall, we are delighted that he will continue to work with us in the future, both as a continuing artistic advisor on special projects, and through the many ways that Carnegie Hall and The Juilliard School will continue to work together in the years to come.”

As senior director and artistic advisor of Carnegie Hall, Ara Guzelimian’s responsibilities have included program planning and development, as well as the creation of a wide range of audience education programs. He has served as the host and producer for Carnegie’s Making Music composer series, which has included concerts devoted to a wide range of composers including: John Adams, Pierre Boulez, Chen Yi, Osvaldo Golijov, Leon Kirchner, Peter Lieberson, Steven Mackey, Meredith Monk, George Perle, and Joan Tower. As a writer and music critic, he has contributed to such publications as Musical America, Opera Quarterly, Opera News, Symphony, The New York Times, and the journal for the IRCAM center in Paris, among other publications. He is the editor of a collection of dialogues between Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said entitled Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music and Society (Pantheon Books, 2002), and has also been active as a radio producer, with projects for Swedish Radio, Minnesota Public Radio, WFMT/Chicago, KERA/Dallas, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Previously, Ara Guzelimian was the artistic administrator of the Aspen Music Festival and School in Colorado from 1993 to 1998. In addition, he was artistic director of the Ojai Festival in California from 1992 to 1997. He was associated with the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1978 to 1993, first as producer for the Orchestra’s national radio broadcasts and then as artistic administrator.