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This article discusses the efforts of the Manhattan School of Music's effort to publicize itself and let people know that there is another music school in New York City besides Juilliard. Manhattan School of Music will unveil the new penthouse apartment of the school's director, Robert Sirota, to showcase the school's new image and the addition of well-known names to its teaching roster. Some thought the money spent on the penthouse could have been better used on the school facilities.

On Tuesday night at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater five teenage girls from the School of American Ballet, dancing to Tchaikovsky, each extended a leg toward the audience above hip height. Then, keeping the legs high in that position, they all began to fall forward off balance toward the audience. They didn't actually fall, of course, but, before they brought the legs down, they had transferred much of their weight in its direction. It was easy for the audience to feel the suspense involved in the moment of extension and then the audacity involved in that transfer of weight: those girls were aiming those legs straight at us. The work was George Balanchine's ''Allegro Brillante'' (1956). But though New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theater have danced this in recent years, they never made that moment so clear. Whereas on Tuesday these five girls proclaimed it as a hallmark of the style in which they have been trained -- as if to say, ''School of American Ballet.'' The school, which Balanchine founded in 1934, has been presenting annual workshop performances now for 47 years. Traditionally there are three performances at this time of year; Tuesday's was also the benefit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports that the Merestead mansion in Mount Kisco, New York will be used by Copeland House, a music center, as the site for teaching and training music composers. Copland will offer composers' residencies, workshops and public concert series at the mansion. It notes that the composers' training program of Copeland will focus on collaborative residencies.

Focuses on the 1994 graduates of Julliard School in New York City. Comments of the music conservatory graduates; Why, ten years after graduation, some have chosen professions other than music; Information on the graduates; How nearly half have dropped out of performing; The difficulties for classical musicians living in a society that seems increasingly to be pushing classical music to the margins; Individual accounts of Mark Inouye, Ittai Shipira, Gwen Appel, Justine Flynn, and others; Orchestras in which they play. INSET: 10 Years Later, a Class Realizes Its Goals, or Changes Them.