It’s an opportunity most young musicians only dream of, the chance to attend The Julliard School in New York City.
And William Leathers, a 17-year-old from Toronto, was one of the three trumpeters this year given that chance.
Leathers auditioned and was accepted to the school’s elite undergraduate music program — something that gives him a chance to learn from some of the best in the world.
“I just want to be the best musician I can be,” Leathers told CBC Toronto’s Dwight Drummond Monday.. “I want to do well in every genre.”
But his acceptance came at a cost, a $364,000 cost over four years to be exact.
My name is William Franklyn Leathers, and I was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I’ve been playing the piano since the age of four, and when I was 12 years old, I became the youngest trumpeter accepted into the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra, as well as the Halton Mississauga Youth Orchestra. So it was a dream come true for me when I received my acceptance letter to The Juilliard School, since I’m one of only three trumpeters that were accepted to Juilliard this year.
The biggest challenge for me, right now, is being able to cover tuition and housing expenses. My parents are doing their best, but right now we’re in a bit of a funding shortfall. The total cost for Juilliard is $71,000 in US dollars per year for four years, which comes out to roughly $91,000 every year in Canadian dollars. We’ve been able to put together about $25,500 so far, and unfortunately scholarships and grants are harder to come by as an international student. So I’m raising money to at least cover the first year, and we’ll see where it goes from there.
I’ve wanted to go to Juilliard for as long as I can remember, and I’ll never forget the look on my parents’ face when we opened the acceptance letter. But the reality is, there’s a pretty big gap between what our family can come up with, and what it costs for tuition, housing, and books. So if you can find it in your heart to help, my family and I would appreciate it so much.
Thanks again, and I hope to make everyone proud!
I’ve seen him play in TSYO concerts and he’s so good!!! Help him get to Julliard!
saw him play a few months ago - dude is so talented
lmao on the edinburgh zoo site it says “there is a daily penguin parade at 14:15 but it may be cancelled last minute as it is a voulntary parade, we do not coax the penguins with food, and they may not want to go out” lmao anarchopenguinism
this is the cutest goddamn thing i’ve ever heard
I saw the penguin parade. It was a very slow parade, because the
pingüinos take their sweet time and aren’t very fast walkers to begin with.
can I volunteer to be a penguin
I feel like the world needs to know the context of the edinburgh zoo penguin parade, becausr I’ve been going there my entire life and I only found out about this the other year.
So a while back (I can’t remember exactly when but I think it was some time around the 40s/50s), a bunch of penguins escaped. A keeper left the gate open so a bunch of penguins just… followed them. And the people loved it. Look at these adorable birds outside their cage just following that guy around! So they get all the penguins back inside and realise that none of them really ran off, they just followed the keeper and went back inside and crowd thought it was amazing, so why not make it a regular thing? Get enough people there that if one of them goes to make a run for it (which at least one has in the past), they can’t get past the people, and let the ones who want outside have a little wander. So every day, they get a crowd, they open the gate, and whatever penguins want to get out can go, waddle about, squawk at people, and then hop back inside.
Also, one of those penguins is Brigadier Sir Nils Olaf III, Colonel-in-cheif of the Norwegian King’s Guard. This isn’t really related to the parade at all, I just love the fact that there’s a penguin in the Norwegian army
Reblogging with Brigadier Sir Nils Olaf III inspecting his troops.
