Juilliard

Juilliard is a possible future conservatory for Lennie Walker, the name attached to a musical ambition that surfaces through encouragement, grief, and her eventual willingness to speak plainly about what she wants. The book presents it as a goal rather than a completed plan: Lennie hopes to study music, but allows that another good conservatory would also serve that desire.

A named possibility

Juilliard enters the story as one example of a conservatory Lennie might attend. Someone suggests that a particular opportunity would help her get into a conservatory, even Juilliard, but the brief exchange does not identify the speaker or specify the opportunity. The institution’s importance in the evidence is therefore personal and prospective: it gives Lennie’s interest in music a concrete possible direction without establishing admission or attendance.

Musical promise and encouragement

Lennie’s musical history precedes her explicit statement of ambition. As a freshman, she and Bailey make honor band. Their teacher, Mr. James, urges the musicians to commit themselves and invites those able to bring their instruments. The scene places Lennie among young musicians being challenged to take their playing seriously, though it does not yet identify Juilliard as her aim.

Later, Big notices the contrast between Lennie’s flushed response to the idea of pursuing music and the effort he remembers her putting into it. He asks whose dream she is describing and recalls her as the person who used to work so hard. Marguerite, too, praises Lennie’s playing and urges her toward Juilliard. Together, their responses frame the possibility as an ambition others have recognized in Lennie, even while she has not fully voiced it herself.

Music as expression and connection

After Bailey’s death, music becomes a way for Lennie to give expression to what she has been unable to say. When she is invited to play with Joe, she goes upstairs for her clarinet. In a later outpouring, she blows the accumulated grief and memories of her and Bailey through the instrument. This episode makes her playing more than a credential for future study: it is also a means of carrying emotion that has resisted speech.

Her musical practice also takes place with other people. Joe returns with a B-flat clarinet and a bass clarinet, and Lennie reaches for the soprano instrument she is accustomed to. At rehearsal, she plays pieces chosen by Mr. James for the upcoming River Festival. Although Joe’s presence draws her into the music, worry about Toby interrupts her concentration; she responds by following the arrangement without deviation. The scene shows both the pull of playing and the emotional strain that can constrain it.

An ambition finally spoken

The clearest statement of Lennie’s goal comes when she talks with Sarah. Lennie says she would love to go to Juilliard, then adds that any good conservatory would be acceptable. What she wants most is to study music and discover what life itself sounds like. Juilliard thus names a cherished possibility, but not the whole of her aspiration: the underlying aim is to make music her field of study and a way of understanding life. The evidence ends with Lennie articulating that desire, not with a decision, application, or admission.