Who said it‚ and when?

Here’s an inter­est­ing quote from a leader of music con­ser­va­to­ries about the state of higher music education:

‚ÄúRight now, when we need musi­cal lead­ers in every com­mu­nity, we are con­cerned only with train­ing vir­tu­osi for a nonex­is­tent mar­ket… We must develop edu­cated peo­ple who are musi­cians in order to develop music.‚Äù

Was this said last year? Sur­pris­ingly, no. It was said in a 1945 essay by William Schu­man, then just begin­ning his 16 year lead­er­ship as pres­i­dent of Juil­liard; and yet it sounds just as tren­chant today.

For more infor­ma­tion about William Schu­man, who was also a promi­nent com­poser in his day, read Anthony Tommasini’s com­men­tary about the last­ing influ­ence of Schu­man in the 01 April 2010 New York Times.

William Schu­man in his Park Avenue apart­ment, 1991