NEC Raises $115 Million in its Seven-Year Gift of Music Capital Campaign
Harry Pratt, Tony Woodcock, David Scudder (Miro Vintoniv photo)
For immediate release:
June 4, 2008
$100 Million Goal Exceeded with $20 Million in Capstone Challenge Gifts from Three Donors.
Calderwood Charitable Foundation Endows New Director of Orchestras Chair.
New England Conservatory is celebrating the conclusion of its seven-year, $100 million Gift of Music capital campaign, having exceeded its goal by $15 million. President Tony Woodcock announced the results at a festive dinner for major donors, June 3 at the Taj Boston.
Among the highlights of the campaign are three capstone challenge gifts totaling $20 million (one for $10 million matched by two $5 million donations). Two of the gifts are anonymous. The third, a $5 million endowment to support the Director of Orchestras faculty chair to be occupied by Hugh Wolff, comes from the Calderwood Charitable Foundation. Wolff’s position will now be known as the Stanford and Norma Jean Calderwood Director of Orchestras.
Also contributing to success were two $10 million gifts, one from Ginny and Pete Nicholas and the other anonymous, that kick-started the campaign during the quiet phase, and twenty-six gifts of $1 million or more.
Support for the campaign was unprecedented in NEC’s history. The Gift of Music galvanized 4000 new donors and 100% of its trustees, and brought in contributions of $19.6 million from private foundations, $14 million from alumni, and $15 million in planned gifts.
Publicly announced at the Jordan Hall Centennial celebrations in October 2003 after a two-year quiet phase, the campaign was established to support five goals of the Long-Range Plan (2002-06) spearheaded by NEC’s late President Daniel Steiner. The goals and amounts raised were:
• Student Scholarships Over $15 million was added to scholarship support through 88 funds that were either newly created or augmented.
• Endowment, including faculty chairs
o $7 million pledged for endowment to maintain Jordan Hall, by descendants of Eben Jordan, who funded the original construction of the hall.
o $9.5 million received to endow four new faculty chairs: The Donna Hieken Flute Chair, The Wendy Shattuck Chair in Voice, the Dorothy Richard Starling Chair in Violin Studies, and the Stanford and Norma Jean Calderwood Director of Orchestras.
o $3 million raised to create the Daniel Steiner Presidential Fund
o the above noted $15 million in Scholarship support
• Community Engagement
o $2.5 million raised to endow NEC’s Community Performances and Partnerships Program, created in 2003. This included a $2 million gift from a private foundation and a gift from the Billy Joel Endowment Fund that created the Performance Outreach Fellows Program.
o Preparatory School grants. A $150,000 three-year award from a private family foundation in Boston that is directed specifically toward scholarship assistance for Boston children in the K-8 age group. With it, NEC has been able to enroll 72 new Boston students in Preparatory School programs.
• Annual Fund Brought in a total of $14 million during the campaign, with a 44% increase in donor participation since 2001. The $2.6 million raised in 2007 nearly tripled the amount raised in 2001.
• Facilities In addition to the Jordan Family endowment for Jordan Hall, NEC raised $2.9 million in federal earmark funds for streetscape and infrastructure improvements; $350,000 to support the Institutional Planning Process for a campus master plan; and funds to build out administrative offices currently used by Institutional Advancement, and fund campaign staffing.
The Gift of Music campaign was chaired by former long-time board chairman David W. Scudder and vice chair Harold I. Pratt. Members of the Campaign Executive Committee included: Tony Woodcock; Jack Vernon, board chair (2002-2008); Trustees Thomas W. Blumenthal, Kennett Burnes, Carol Henderson, Nancy Noble Holland ’95 M.M., and Frank V. Wisneski, Jr.
The Leadership Giving Council was headed by Carolyn and Peter Lynch, and Ginny and Pete Nicholas (the latter couple also served as Honorary Chairs of the Campaign). The campaign staff was directed by Don Jones, Vice President for Institutional Advancement.
The Gift of Music campaign was four times more ambitious than NEC’s $25 million capital campaign instituted in 1990 and completed in 1996. “When the Trustees approved this new campaign, it was an enormous, huge, unprecedented step for the Conservatory,” said Scudder. “In the previous campaign, it took us 6 years to raise what turned out to be $26 million. Now we were going to raise $100 million in seven years. Wow!” However, he added, because of “Daniel Steiner’s absolutely crucial leadership, we were able to get everyone on board.”
Scudder attributed the campaign’s success to several factors:
• “Those members of our boards who stepped up immediately in the first year and got us off to a good start.”
• Daniel Steiner’s appointments of prominent faculty early in the campaign which in turned caused student applications to skyrocket, and demonstrated to potential donors that the Long Range Plan was working. “It became an easy sell.”
• Harry Pratt’s leadership of the Annual Fund, which every year set and met a goal higher than the previous one.
• Tony Woodcock’s creation of a new orchestra program that has the potential to become world-class and was an ideal candidate for funding from the Calderwood Charitable Foundation.
• The crucial capstone challenge grant and its two matches that came through this year
• Don Jones and the IA staff that got out the word and, in particular, attracted alumni who participated in record numbers and gave at a much higher level than expected
“We are in a new landscape thanks to the phenomenal success of the Gift of Music,” stated President Woodcock. “Over the course of the campaign, NEC has enhanced its faculty in strings, voice, opera and jazz departments and is now regarded as having the finest string faculty and chamber music program in the country. We expect our Orchestra program to shortly become the equal of strings and chamber music.
“Our student applications are up 82% over the last five years and our rate of acceptance is more selective (28% accepted, down from 47% at the beginning of the campaign). We are much better able to compete with our music school peers. And we have set the foundation to support our new strategic plan, which will be completed this summer. I am enormously grateful to our campaign chairs, the Campaign Executive Committee, our Leadership Giving Council, and our entire development staff for their diligence, energy, and unflagging enthusiasm. And, of course, I’m deeply appreciative of all our many donors. As we take NEC to the next level of eminence, I am moved by how many people have demonstrated their faith in the Conservatory’s future and the future of the musical art.”
For further information, check the NEC Website .
ABOUT NEW ENGLAND CONSERVATORY
Recognized nationally and internationally as a leader among music schools, New England Conservatory offers rigorous training in an intimate, nurturing community to 750 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral music students from around the world. Its faculty of 225 boasts internationally esteemed artist-teachers and scholars. Its alumni go on to fill orchestra chairs, concert hall stages, jazz clubs, recording studios, and arts management positions worldwide. Nearly half of the Boston Symphony Orchestra is composed of NEC trained musicians and faculty.
The oldest independent school of music in the United States, NEC was founded in 1867 by Eben Tourjee. Its curriculum is remarkable for its wide range of styles and traditions. On the college level, it features training in classical, jazz, Contemporary Improvisation, world and early music. Through its Preparatory School, School of Continuing Education, and Community Collaboration Programs, it provides training and performance opportunities for children, pre-college students, adults, and seniors. Through its outreach projects, it allows young musicians to engage with non-traditional audiences in schools, hospitals, and nursing homes—thereby bringing pleasure to new listeners and enlarging the universe for classical music and jazz.
NEC presents more than 600 free concerts each year, many of them in Jordan Hall, its world- renowned, 100-year old, beautifully restored concert hall. These programs range from solo recitals to chamber music to orchestral programs to jazz and opera scenes. Every year, NEC’s opera studies department also presents two fully staged opera productions at the Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston.
NEC is co-founder and educational partner of “From the Top,” a weekly radio program that celebrates outstanding young classical musicians from the entire country. With its broadcast home in Jordan Hall, the show is now carried by National Public Radio and is heard on 250 stations throughout the United States.
Contact: Ellen Pfeifer
Public Relations Manager
New England Conservatory
617-585-1143
epfeifer@newenglandconservatory.edu