First class honors

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."