The Juilliard School /ˌdʒuːliˈɑrd/ located in the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established during 1905. It is identified informally as simply "Juilliard," and currently trains about 800 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music.

During 1905 the Institute of Musical Art was initiated on the premise that the United States did not have a premier music school and too many students were going to Europe to study music. At its formation, the Institute was located in Manhattan at Fifth Avenue and 12th Street. During its first year, the institute enrolled 500 students. It relocated during 1910 to Claremont Avenue in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. During 1920, the Juilliard Foundation was created, named after textile merchant Augustus D. Juilliard, who bequeathed a substantial amount of money for the advancement of music in the United States. During 1924 the foundation purchased the Vanderbilt family guesthouse at 49 East 52nd Street to start the Juilliard Graduate School. During 1926 it merged partially with the Institute of Musical Art with a common president, the Columbia University professor John Erskine. The schools had separate deans and identities. The conductor and music-educator Frank Damrosch continued as the Institute's dean, and the Australian pianist and composer Ernest Hutcheson was appointed dean of the Graduate School. During 1937, Hutcheson succeeded Erskine as president of the two institutions, a job he had until 1945. As of 1946, the combined schools were named The Juilliard School of Music. The president of the school at that time was William Schuman, the first winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music. During 1951, the school added a dance division, directed by Martha Hill.

Joyce DiDonato (born February 13, 1969) is an award-winning American operatic mezzo-soprano particularly admired for her interpretations of the works of Handel, Mozart, and Rossini. DiDonato has performed with many of the world's leading opera companies and orchestras. In 2012 she won a Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Solo.

Joyce DiDonato was born Joyce Flaherty in Prairie Village, Kansas in 1969, the sixth of seven children in a close-knit Irish-American family. She sang in choir and musicals in high school and dreamed of becoming a Broadway star or pop singer. DiDonato entered Wichita State University (WSU) in the autumn of 1988 where she studied vocal music education. She was initially more interested in teaching high school vocal music and musical theatre and did not become interested in opera until her junior year, when she was cast in a school production of Die Fledermaus. After graduating from WSU in the spring of 1992, DiDonato decided to pursue graduate studies in vocal performance at the Academy of Vocal Arts. Following her studies in Philadelphia, she was accepted in Santa Fe Opera's young artist program in 1995. While there she appeared in several minor roles and understudied for larger parts in such operas as Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, Richard Strauss' Salome, Kálmán's Gräfin Mariza and the 1994 world premiere of David Lang's Modern Painters. DiDonato was honored as the Outstanding Apprentice Artist by the Santa Fe Opera that year. In 1996 she became a part of Houston Grand Opera's young artist program where she sang from the autumn of 1996 to the spring of 1998. During the summer of 1997, DiDonato participated in San Francisco Opera's Merola Program.

David Afkham (Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, 1983) is a German conductor.

Afkham was born in Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany) in 1983 and started his music education at age 15 at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg, where he studied piano with James Avery and in 2002 he won the Jugend Musiziert competition. In 2007 he finished his conducting studies with Nicolás Pasquet at the Hochschule für Musik "Franz Liszt" in Weimar.

In 2008 David Afkham won the first prize of the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition and became the assistant conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and assistant of Valery Gergiev. Since 2010 he is also the assistant conductor of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra.

He has conducted the London Symphony Orchestra, Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, Chicago Civic Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Jenaer Philharmonie, Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar, Bamberg Symphony, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Staatskapelle Weimar and served as assistant of Bernard Haitink with the Royal Concertgebouw and Chicago Symphony orchestras, assistant guest conductor of the Baden-Wurttemberg Youth Orchestra and principal conductor of the KHG-Symphony-Orchestra Freiburg.