Registration is now open for Academy alumni from all years to join us for the 50th anniversary reunion, May 23-27, 2012. Click here to register!
On September 9, 1962 the founders of Interlochen Arts Academy gathered for the first time with all of the students, teachers, faculty and parents who had decided to join in their educational experiment.
Interlochen founder Joseph Maddy, who was then 70 years old, opened his eight-minute speech with a look back at the Camp’s early years and the financial struggles it faced. Relishing in the Camp’s subsequent and ongoing success, he suggested that the early deficits were a necessary side effect of major investments in the Camp’s physical and human infrastructure. He correctly predicted that the Academy would face similar challenges but acknowledged the generous support of Clement Stone, who covered the Academy’s deficits through the difficult first decade. “We expect to have a deficit, but thank goodness we have found a man that underwrote that deficit.” Maddy cheerily noted that thanks to the support of Stone, the Academy “could lose $100,000” as long as its first year was an artistic success.
In the longest and most substantial speech of the evening, Marten ten Hoor presented the rationale and educational philosophy for the new school. A professor of philosophy, recently retired from the University of Alabama, ten Hoor helped shape the Academy curriculum. He noted that instruction in the arts and academics could seldom be found under the same roof and that much of the arts instruction available in public schools and universities was limited and theoretical and did not encourage true artistry.
In the third audio clip, Joseph Maddy and Don Th. Jaeger introduce the members of the new faculty.
