The exclusive Juilliard School will roll out this spring an Open edX-based platform, intended to reach non-Juilliard students, called the Juilliard Open Classroom. It will follow the goal of “expanding the reach and impact of our educational programs, giving students of dance, drama, and music around the globe the opportunity to develop their craft and to understand the inner workings of great works of art under the guidance of some of the world’s greatest performing arts educators,” according to Joseph W. Polisi, President of Juilliard.
This Open.Juilliard.edu platform includes a suite of performing arts courses, taught by Juilliard faculty members and developed in conjunction with edX. Students will be able to form interactive practice groups with their peers, receive personalized feedback from course fellows and share videos.
The first four classes in the series, scheduled for May, will run for six weeks. Students will be able to receive a statement of accomplishment upon completion, although no credit will be granted:
- Sharpen Your Piano Artistry is designed for advanced beginner- to intermediate-level pianists to improve their playing. Under the guidance of faculty member Michael Shinn (BM ’02, MM ’04, piano) and graduate-level Juilliard pianists, students will brush up on technique and, in the course of learning two classical pieces, be able to share weekly performance videos, get professional feedback on their progress, and finally create performance videos of the two pieces.
- Conquering Performance Anxiety, taught by faculty member Noa Kageyama (MM ’00, violin), helps musicians at all levels learn and use techniques embraced by professional musicians and elite athletes to develop the psychological skills necessary to perform at their optimal level with confidence.
- Steve Laitz, chair of the Juilliard’s music theory and analysis department, teaches Music Theory 101, which exposes students of all backgrounds to the fundamentals of music theory, including concepts such as pitch, tonality, mode, key, dissonance, rhythm, and meter.
- How to Listen to Great Music for Orchestra is taught by music history faculty member Michael Griffel and features expert interviews and concert footage from the Berlin Philharmonic. No previous knowledge is required, so anyone can learn to appreciate orchestral music without feeling intimidated. The focus is on five iconic works—Handel’s Water Music, Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat Major, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, and Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra.
