The Juilliard School Announces Kayden Music Commissioning Program

The newly endowed fund at Juilliard’s Pre-College will support up to 10 new works each year from diverse composers

Created by a Juilliard Pre-College alumnus and trustee Jerold S. Kayden and his wife Stephanie, the Kayden Music Commissioning Program will fund eight to ten new works annually, in perpetuity, at The Juilliard School’s preparatory division.

The fund will also continue the school’s aim of building a more representative world of classical music that involves repertoire by composers from diverse gender, racial, ethnic, and cultural heritages.

To include orchestral, solo, and chamber compositions, the commissions will offer collaborative opportunities with organizations, institutions, and/or internally across Juilliard’s departments and disciplines. The composers for the program are selected through a process guided by Pre-College faculty members and administrators. 

For the commissioning program’s first orchestral concert, Juilliard Pre-College has partnered with the Interlochen Center for the Arts to co-commission a work by Mary Watkins. The latter’s The People's Awakening will premiere on April 12, 2024, at Interlochen and will receive its New York premiere by the Juilliard Pre-College Symphony on May 4, 2024.

With support from the Kayden Music Commissioning Program, Juilliard and Interlochen will also debut two orchestral commissions per year for three years as of the 2024/25 season. 

The first solo and chamber commissions from the program will receive their premieres at the Juilliard Pre-College Faculty recital on April 20, 2024. 

The concert program includes four solo works for brass and piano, and two brass chamber works, by composers Kevin Newton, Tim Higgins, Kevin Day, Kara Talve, Karen Tanaka, and Jordyn Davis, who all worked with the faculty members in preparation for the concert. 

Also on April 20, Juilliard’s Pre-College Orchestra will perform alongside musicians from the New York Philharmonic (NYP) at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall as part of the Composing Inclusion program — a current partnership with the NYP and the American Composers Forum. 

“We are incredibly grateful to Mr. Kayden for his generosity in supporting an inclusive future of repertoire for young musicians," said Juilliard Pre-College’s dean and director, Weston Sprott in the press release. “The Preparatory Division’s commissioning of over 50 new works in the last three years reflects our commitment to an artistic education that connects students with composers from a vast diversity of backgrounds, and we are thrilled that this vision will be realized for generations to come.” 

“My mother Mildred Kayden was a Juilliard Preparatory Division alumna (Pre-College ‘37, piano) and full-time theater composer,” said Jerold Kayden, also an alum of the school. “Although it is not my full-time job, my own composing benefited greatly from my early experience studying at Juilliard,” Kayden added. “Marrying diverse living composers with Juilliard’s superb Pre-College faculty and student performers is an amazing opportunity to broaden the field of classical music. I hope these compositions enjoy a subsequent life with performers around the world.”