Anita Mercier Tells The Life of a Cellist

Forthcoming from Ashgate Press

Guilhermina Suggia: The Life of a Cellist
by Anita Mercier

Born in 1885 in Porto, Portugal, to a middle-class musical family, Guilhermina Suggia began playing cello at the age of five. A child prodigy, she was already a seasoned performer when she won a scholarship to study with Julius Klengel in Leipzig at the age of sixteen. Suggia lived in Paris with fellow cellist Pablo Casals for several years before World War I; it was a professional and personal partnership that was as stormy as it was unconventional. When they separated, Suggia moved to London, where she built a spectacularly successful solo career. Suggia’s virtuosity and musicianship, along with the magnificent style and stage presence famously captured in Augustus John’s portrait, made her one of the most sought-after concert artists of her day. In 1927 she married Dr. José Casimiro Carteado Mena and settled down to a comfortable life divided between Portugal and England.

Throughout the 1930s, Suggia remained one of the most respected musicians in Europe. She partnered on stage with many famous instrumentalists and conductors and completed numerous BBC broadcasts. The war years kept her at home in Portugal, where she focused on teaching, but she returned to England directly after the war and resumed performing. When Suggia died in 1950, her will provided for the establishment of several scholarship funds for young cellists, including England's prestigious Suggia Gift.

Mercier's study of Suggia's letters and other writings reveal an intelligent, warm and generous character, an artist who was enormously dedicated, knowledgeable and self-disciplined. Suggia was one of the first women to make a career of playing the cello at a time when prejudice against women who played this traditionally 'masculine' instrument was still strong. A role model for many other musicians, she was herself a fearless pioneer.

Guilhermina Suggia: The Life of a Cellist will be published by Ashgate Publishing in 2008.

Poetry in Translation

The Juilliard Orchestra performance at Avery Fisher Hall on November 7 features Symphony No. 0 by Alfred Schnittke. Poems by Joseph Brodsky and Starets Siluan as well as the notes from the Dresden Philharmonic are translated by faculty member Harold Slamovitz for the Lincoln Center Playbill.


The Juilliard Percussion Ensemble recently performed Kaija Saariaho’s Trois Rivières. Harold’s translation of poetry by Li Po for the piece (see below) also appeared in the October issue of Lincoln Center’s Playbill.

Moonlit Night on the River

Softly the breeze rises on the river,
Sadly the trees shiver near the lake.
I go up to the prow in the calm, beautiful night.
The mats are spread out and the boat springs lightly forward.
The moon follows the fleeing of the dark mountains,
The water flows with the blue sky,
As deeply, upside down, as the celestial sky.
Nothing is visible, only the blended shadow of tree and cloud.

The road of return is long, long;
The immensity of the river is sad, sad.
I am alone, the orchid flowers disappear,
The song of the fisherman recalls my sadness.
The steep detour hides the shore behind,
The pale sand shows a reef in front.
I think of you, Lord, my sight no longer reaches you,
And my vision, lost in the distance muses on my regret.



Also known as Li Po, Li Bai is one of the most celebrated poets of the golden age of Chinese poetry. He lived in the first half of the 8th century, during the T’ang Dynasty.

First Kaleidoscope Offering A Great Success

On October 18, the Liberal Arts Speaker Series was inaugurated as Carol Herselle Krinsky described for a fascinated crowd "How Midtown Manhattan Was Created." Aided by slides & a brisk delivery, Professor Krinsky explained the complicated, interwoven history of railroads, business & social planning that created midtown as we know it. Especially memorable were her descriptions & slides of Grand Central Station & Park Avenue as they developed in response to electric train technology, the demands of businessmen, & the pressures of a booming real estate industry. Liberal Arts Professor Greta Berman introduced the speaker & is pictured with her above. (Photo credit: Renee Baron)

Outstanding Liberal Arts Student Gets Rave Review For Her Met Debut

Isabel Leonard, a recent Juilliard graduate fondly remembered as an enthusiastic & committed Liberal Arts student, was praised in the New York Times for her performance in the role of Stephano in the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Gounod's Romeo et Juiliette for "making her company debut with remarkable aplomb." She is described as singing "with the assurance of one who feels completely at home on the stage." The reviewer notes that "it is hard to make a splash in a pants role in a long opera on a night when Anna Netrebko is singing, but Ms. Leonard did." For the full review, see newyorktimes.com, September 27, 2007, "The Lovers of Verona, Swaggering and Soaring." The production runs through December 31.

Literature & Materials of Music Department Teams with Liberal Arts

A new course, Arts for the 21st Century, team taught by Greta Berman of Liberal Arts & Vivian Fung of L & M, addresses issues crucial to young artists today, including innovative programming of music and dance repertoire, as well as curating and collecting visual art works. By means of specific examples, the course investigates what is meant by the "canon" or "mainstream" in the arts, re-examining the justification for the consistent inclusion of certain artists and the exclusion of others. How does inclusion or exclusion affect their significance? Who makes the decisions? How can programming and curating address more creatively the interests of present and future audiences? Classes will include guest speakers, museum visits, and presentationswith slides and music.

Mitchell Aboulafia Considers Schools & Theories of Psychology

This new course examines the theories of major schools and figures in the history of psychology and social psychology. Traditions that may be addressed include psychoanalysis, functionalism, Gestalt psychology, behaviorism, symbolic interaction, and existential psychology. Among the figures who may be discussed are William James, Freud, R.D. Laing, B.F. Skinner, J.B. Watson, George Herbert Mead, Piaget, Rollo May, Lacan, Nancy Chodorow.

A Storm of Poetry from Ron Price

Liberal Arts faculty member Ron Price has upcoming readings at The 11th Street Park Preservation Series (Manhattan), Bisquit BBQ (Brooklyn), the DiVerseCity Series at La Negrita (Manhattan), & The Living Theater (Manhattan). For dates & times, email rprice@juilliard.edu

Ron also has poems forthcoming in Big City Lit, Live! Mag, Northeast Corridor, Tamarind, Zone 3, & a featured group in Rattapallax.

New Faculty Member Anthony Lioi Creates Perfect Storm

A new course, Perfect Storms: Environmental Literature, Ethics, & Politics, examines the politics of ecology through the literature and film today's environmental crisis, unprecedented & planetary in scale, has produced. The class will examine ideas of nature across contemporary global cultures; the environmental history of New York City; key cases in environmental ethics, including water pollution, food production, mass extinction of species, and global climate change; and popular movements for environmental change in Japan, India, Kenya, and Russia.

Hegel at Juilliard

Mitchell Aboulafia, in his second year as chair of Liberal Arts, & in addition to deep changes in the department's structure, including reduced course load, increased number of faculty & the addition of many new electives, has brought Hegel to Juilliard. Meeting after hours, students from the New School of Social Research join Juilliard students to make their way through Phenomenology of Spirit under Mitchell's guidance. The group began last spring semester & continues this fall with 22 members meeting every other Monday.

Anita Mercier Offers Perspectives on Gender & Sexuality

This course explores some of the issues raised by the way we conceptualize and assign value to categories like “male,” “female,” “gay,” and “straight.” To what extent are sex roles and gender differences rooted in biology? To what extent are they socially constructed? What are the arguments for and against the morality of homosexuality and gay marriage? Do men and women approach ethical decisions in fundamentally different ways? These and related questions will be investigated through readings drawn from feminist theory, gender studies, and moral philosophy.

(Offered Fall 2007)

A New York City Kaleidoscope: Speaker Series At Juilliard Sponsored By The Liberal Arts Department

Oct 18, 12:00 - 1:00 pm, Morse Hall: Carol Herselle Krinsky
Architectural Historian, N.Y.U.
"How Midtown Manhattan Was Created"
Nov 7, 12:00 - 1:00 pm, Cafeteria: Robert Zaller
Chair, History Department, Drexel University, Philadelphia
“The Glory Days of NYC Baseball”
Dec 6, 1:00 - 2:00 pm, Room 309: Peter Kwong
Professor, Hunter College, CUNY
“NYC Chinatown and Asian Immigration”

Spring Semester:

Dates tba:
Galway Kinnell or Sonia Sanchez, poets
Quincy Mills, “African American Barbershops, NYC”
Waiting for confirmation: Tim Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank, NYC
"Money Matters, NYC"