Official visit. Announcement of the programme of exchange scholarships between French and American art schools (29 March 2010)

Carla Bruni-Sarkozy’s fifth visit to New York with Nicolas Sarkozy was in four parts. The first day of the two-day official visit ending on Tuesday 30 March with a private dinner at the White House provided an opportunity for the French President’s wife to announce her foundation’s exchange programme between French and American art schools. After a visit to the Columbia University, where Nicolas Sarkozy, three days after a summit in Brussels, advocated dialogue between the USA and Europe, the first lady of France visited the French Institute-Alliance Française (Fiaf), the Juilliard School and the Steinhardt School, an art department of New York University.

Having made contact last September in New York with the American philanthropic couple John and Jenny Paulson, Ms Bruni-Sarkozy was able to present the programmes of exchange scholarships that her foundation is about to set up between leading French state art schools and their American counterparts. On the French side, these include the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Danse et de Musique de Paris, and the École Nationale Supérieure de Photographie d’Arles; on the American side, they include the Juilliard School, the School of Visual Arts, and the International Center for Photography.

With an endowment of $1.5 million over three years, this programme will, from next September, enable about twenty French and American students who do not have the means to do so, to spend an exchange semester on the other side of the Atlantic. Alliance Française will act as liaison for the French students arriving in the United States and for the Americans arriving in France. The latter will attend courses to improve their knowledge of French language and literature.

There was then a visit to the Juilliard School, the famous American school of music, dance and dramatic art. Carla attended a rehearsal by the conductor William Christie, who is the director of Les Arts Florissants, having been a director of the Cité de la musique in Paris, and who is now a resident artist at the Juillard School. Ms Bruni-Sarkozy, who is a musician herself, was also shown two manuscript scores kept in the library, The Grand Fugue, Piano, four hands by Beethoven and The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart. “Poco poco, sempre più allegro”, she read out loud. There was a change of atmosphere in the art department of New York University, known as NYU Steinhardt. A young female student asked the audience to close their eyes for ten minutes for a workshop performance. This was a visibly intense moment. “I wish every day were like this”, the artistic first lady concluded.