With the Masters, In Their Element
By CELESTINE BOHLEN
Published: June 13, 2002
On the theory that any artist, regardless of age or experience, can benefit from guidance, Rolex S.A., the Swiss watchmaker, has created a novel mentoring program that will link up five up-and-coming artists with five world-class masters in their fields.
The five mentors -- the conductor Sir Colin Davis, the choreographer William Forsythe, the Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, the Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza and the theater artist Robert Wilson -- and their protégés gather tonight for a reception at the Frick Collection, where they will begin their yearlong partnership.
This year's protégés come from all over the world -- from Jordan, Spain, Australia, Argentina and Hong Kong, to be precise -- and were selected by a series of nominating panels made up of distinguished experts working in anonymity; from 96 candidates in 39 countries, they recommended three finalists in each category. These were then interviewed by the mentors themselves, who then chose their own protégé.
In addition to travel expenses, the program offers the protégé a yearly stipend of $25,000, while the mentors receive $50,000 for participating in the program, which requires that they spend no less than six weeks or 30 working days with their protégés. How, when and where they spend that time is up to the two partners.
For the protégés selected this year, both the idea of the program, and the news that they had been nominated, came as a surprise. ''I found out about it in an e-mail that came out of the blue,'' said Julia Leigh, a 32-year-old Australian novelist now living in Paris, who was chosen by Toni Morrison. ''To this day, I don't know who nominated me.''
The element of surprise sets the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative apart from others designed to support working artists, several participants said. ''It is basically about one's work, and nothing to do with whom I knew,'' said Sahel Al-Hiyari, a 38-year-old architect from Amman, Jordan, who will traveling to Portugal to work with Mr. Siza, winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1992.
The soprano Jessye Norman, who is on the program's 15-member advisory board that chooses a new group of mentors each year, said the program could help slow down the now overheated transition from music school to the stage. ''No one now has the time to learn what the music business is all about -- for instance, to learn what music is appropriate for the voice of a young singer,'' she said. ''The problem in the schools is that there are so many students, so few professors and so little time.''
Ms. Norman remembers meeting older professionals as a young singer, but ''they were busy, or I was living in another city and there wasn't the time to benefit from their experience and knowledge.'' Besides providing the money, the Rolex program can offer young artists the opportunity to ''hang around a bit with the people who are doing what they hope to do,'' she said.