Marsalis to Deliver the Commencement Address at Juilliard’s 113th Commencement Ceremony

The Juilliard School has announced that alumnus Wynton Marsalis, trumpeter, director of Juilliard Jazz Studies, and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, will address the graduates at the school’s 113th commencement ceremony, which takes place Friday, May 18, 2018, at 11a.m. in Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center.

Marsalis received an honorary doctor of music degree from Juilliard in 2006. This will be the final commencement forJuilliard President Joseph W. Polisi, who has had a long association with Mr. Marsalis and asked that he be the commencement speaker. In July, Damian Woetzel will begin as the school’s seventh president.

During the ceremony, Juilliard will confer honorary doctorates upon five remarkable individuals: opera singer Grace Bumbry; bassist and former Juilliard faculty member Ron Carter; Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and screenwriter Lynn Nottage; Ballet Hispánico founder Tina Ramirez; and Ann Ziff, philanthropist and chairman of the Metropolitan Opera. Bumbry and Carter will be receiving honorary doctor of music degrees, and Nottage and Ramirez will be receiving honorary doctor of fine arts degrees. Ziff will be receiving an honorary doctor of humane letters degree.

President Polisi will read special citations and present degrees to all five honorees, who will be garbed in Juilliard’s traditional academic robes and velvet caps and who will receive their ceremonial doctoral hoods onstage.