First class honors

Wearing caps and gowns, 33 students from eight countries, including China, the United States, South Korea and Uzbekistan, graduated from the Tianjin Juilliard School after two years of study. On Friday, the Tianjin school hosted a commencement ceremony for those graduates, the first time for the school.

As the first overseas campus of the Juilliard School in New York, and the first such institution in China that confers a US-accredited music degree, the Tianjin school confers a master's degree from the world-renowned performing arts academy upon all its graduates.

The commencement ceremony also featured performances by the students and faculty of the Tianjin school, including an arrangement of Edward Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance for brass trio, Antonin Dvorak's String Quartet in F Major, Op 96 by the MILA Quartet and Jacques Ibert's Allegro from Trois Pieces Breves for wind quintet performed by resident faculty member Akio Koyama and graduating students.

It ended with Dvorak's Slavonic Dance Op 46 No 8, which was recorded and performed online by the inaugural class of the Tianjin school's graduate students, led by another resident faculty member Shen Yiwen.

"We are not just celebrating today. We celebrate how you have been studying and taking on the challenges of the past two years. Many of us have witnessed how you have transformed as artists and how far you have come. We are proud of you," says violinist He Wei, who is the artistic director and dean of the Tianjin school. "The commencement marks the end of one chapter in your life's journey. The end of this chapter is the beginning of the next, even more exciting one, where you will connect with people of various backgrounds through music."

One of the graduates, Xu Jinzhao, a pianist with a major in chamber music, was awarded the Tianjin Juilliard School Prize for his artistic achievement and academic excellence in all areas of endeavor at the Tianjin school.

"I had no idea about this prize, which was a big surprise," says Xu, who was born into a musical family in Shanghai and was enrolled in the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 2016, where he studied piano and immersed himself in chamber music.

"When I applied to study at Tianjin Juilliard, the campus was still under construction. Like many students, I didn't know what to expect, but I was very intrigued by the school's chamber music program," says Xu, adding that he will continue his musical study by applying for a doctoral program.

Unlike Xu, oboist Bethany Alison Lawrence plans to work in China.

"The music scene, especially the chamber music scene, is vibrant in China. I will have a couple of auditions next week and, hopefully, I can work with Chinese symphony orchestras," says Lawrence, who hails from Houston in the US. She won the Joseph W. Polisi Prize, which is dedicated to graduating students who best exemplify the school's values of "artist as citizen", which manifest as both outstanding artistry and citizenship by way of outreach, community participation and leadership.

She adds that studying in China is her very first experience living outside her home state of Texas. "It has been a pretty big learning experience and I'm really happy with my decision," she says.

Wang Ziyi, who studied in the collaborative piano program with her teacher Katherine Chu, also graduated from the Tianjin school. During the past two years, she has developed a passion for vocal music, a subject that she was not very interested in initially.

According to Chu, the program places a special emphasis on vocal coaching and prepares students for careers as performers, coaches and teaching artists as the field of collaborative piano develops rapidly throughout Asia.

"I just made the decision last week to dive into the collaborative piano environment, and Germany will be the next chapter in my life. I'd like to challenge myself to learn another language and live and study in a totally new country," says Wang.

The cooperation for the Tianjin school was announced on Sept 28,2015, by Joseph W. Polisi, the sixth president of the Juilliard School in New York－who held the position for 34 years (1984-2018), the longest presidential term in the history of the school－during the visit of Peng Liyuan, the wife of President Xi Jinping.

In partnership with the Tianjin Conservatory of Music, the Tianjin Juilliard School's campus broke ground on June 15, 2017.

The Tianjin school offers pre-college and graduate level programs. The graduate school, which opened in the fall of 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, offers three majors－orchestral studies, chamber music and collaborative piano.

Polisi and Damian Woetzel, the seventh president of The Juilliard School, couldn't make it to Tianjin due to the pandemic. However, they shared their excitement online.

"After two years of diligent work and an extraordinary determination which outmaneuvered the pandemic, we celebrate you, the members of the first graduating class of the Tianjin Juilliard School," says Polisi, who visited the Tianjin campus last autumn. "We know that, in the 18th century, Johann Sebastian Bach saw himself as a musical craftsman, whose artistic output was created for the good of humankind. Today's musicians, as well, must believe in their roles as representatives of an art form that has a true and real civilizing influence on society. Through practicing your profession, you will enrich yourselves by helping others."

The US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns says: "The musical dialogue that Tianjin Juilliard promotes is one essential way for us to keep our two countries talking and singing and playing music together. Musical dialogue is a key element in the history of the diplomatic relationship between the US and China, and that continues to the present day."

"I hope that your experience here will equip you with optimism and vigor, and that you will maintain independence and firmly strive to be 'world artists', combining a high artistic level with sound social responsibility," says the Chinese Ambassador to the US, Qin Gang. "You will apply your craft to the heart-to-heart communication among peoples and crossing borders, and be active participants in promoting dialogue and exchanges among civilizations throughout the world."