‘We represent the future,’ Juilliard School head says of its multicultural Tianjin campus

‘An orchestra is a metaphor for collaboration,’ says music school head Damian Woetzel, a believer in power of arts to bring people together

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Damian Woetzel, president of The Juilliard School, highlighted the progress of its China campus in Tianjin on a recent visit to Hong Kong, where the Tianjin Juilliard School orchestra performed as part of the HKGNA festival. Photo: Todd Rosenberg Photography

Published: 11:15am, 2 Dec 2024

In 2019, just before the Covid-19 pandemic halted most international travel, The Juilliard School opened its second campus in Binhai New Area, a Chinese economic zone 10,000km from its home in New York’s Lincoln Center.

Back then, the area on the outskirts of Tianjin, in northern China, was as sterile as Manhattan is vibrant, and was known mostly for being the site of a deadly 2015 explosion and home to an enormous, Instagram-friendly library filled with fake books.

Today, Binhai New Area has a population of over 2 million and has become a hi-tech industrial hub. The unglamorous address belies the fact that the world’s most famous music school enjoyed top-level political and financial support from Chinese partners to promote Sino-US cultural exchange, and the blessing of China’s first lady, Peng Liyuan, who in 2015 was the guest of honour when plans for the school were announced in New York.

The 350,000 sq ft (32,500 square metre) building designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro that houses the Tianjin Juilliard School has a 687-seat concert hall, a 295-seat recital hall and a 221-seat theatre.

The premise was always one school, two campuses, and the pandemic was a very specific opportunity to give proof of that

Damian Woetzel on the role of Tianjin Juilliard School

Students gets visits by teachers from the New York campus, and access to the expertise of partner institution the Tianjin Conservatory of Music.