There’s that old joke about a tourist in New York who asks a passerby how to get to Carnegie Hall, one of the world’s most prestigious classical music venues.But if they were really in the know, rather than just a wiseguy, they’d have added that an artist diploma from the city’s Juilliard School – the pre-eminent performing arts school, whose alumni have won more than 100 Grammys, 62 Tonys and 16 Pulitzers – couldn’t hurt.
They’re currently back in Melbourne, where they grew up, for a few months before they head back to New York to start the two-year course. They’ve been living there for a few years doing master’s degrees, as soloists, at Juilliard. They asked if they could study as a duo and were told “in theory, yeah”, says Miles. The artist diploma program has had two before: piano and violin duos, but both were exceptions that required bureaucratic workarounds in the long, demanding application process.For the new course they’ll be studying under Sharon Isbin, known as her generation’s pre-eminent classical guitarist, who has several Grammy Awards on the shelf and has, indeed, played Carnegie Hall.
They’ll also be able to take other courses around the school, including drama classes, hopefully to make their performances more interactive and engaging. Robin Williams was a Juilliard graduate, points out Ziggy, and on stage “we tell jokes … well, we try and tell jokes”.
Well done!
Good luck, lads!