Less Skylarking

The Juilliard Foundation has always been generous. For a number of years it has granted foreign fellowships to advanced students of Music who have shown decided promise. The Juilliard fellows journeyed gaily to Paris, Rome, Berlin, Vienna, inhaled the artistic atmosphere, drenched themselves in strong aesthetic traditions, acquired a priceless joie de vivre. Also, there were champagne, liqueurs and sometimes instruction at the feet of a foreign Maestro.

But this is to be changed in October. Certain objections have been lodged at the Juilliard headquarters. There have been rumors of skylarking, of the "waving of wild legs" in naughty European centres, of an inadequately intense devotion to purely artistic education. The Foundation has therefore decided to mingle stern wisdom with its generosity in the future. American control, on the spot, is to be substituted for American beneficiaries' sippings of la vie de Boheme.

All this is indicated in the release of an important statement by Dr. Eugene A. Noble, Juilliard Secretary. According to his pronunciamento, fellowships will be offered as usual (100 of them) to those graduates of music schools and of the music departments of colleges and universities, who give the greatest evidence of brilliance in competitive examinations to be held in October. But "no beneficiaries will be granted money to study abroad under this plan." Instead, the Foundation will employ teachers, operate its own studios and give daily direction to its fellowship-holders. Dr. Noble himself will keep check on their daily work and progress. Students who are at present sojourning in Europe have already been notified that the support they now enjoy from the Foundation is to be withdrawn. Their holiday is over.

In order to make his plan workable, the Foundation has acquired a large stone-front building on East 52nd St., Manhattan, between fashionable Madison Ave. and exclusive Park Ave. Advanced musical education--supervised-- is to be the slogan of the organization. It aims to be, in time, a novel variety of National conservatory of music: one which gives no stated courses and grants no degrees, but one in which those who really deserve advanced instruction in composition, voice-culture, wind-instrument and piano playing will be given the benefit of a rigorous Winter's training. Instructors and students alike will be constantly under observation, no matter how renowned the former or how gifted the latter.