Last week big money was donated to construction of music buildings for two major U.S. universities. An anonymous Princeton alumni couple have pledged $10 million for a new music building at the New Jersey campus, and the University of Missouri has received $10 million, its largest gift ever for fine arts, from Jeanne and Rex Sinquefield for a proposed School of Music building. Of course, not a penny of that $20 mil goes to musicians, and musicians trained in those spaces may find that funds for their future careers are a bit tight, too.
The Princeton donation will underwrite construction on the edge of campus of a new 23,000 square foot building that’s supplemental to the school’s 47,000-square-foot Woolworth Center of Musical Studies situated in the university’s center. The Sinquefeld’s contribution to Mizzou launches a fundraising campaign for renovation of its Fine Arts building that also serves MU’s theater and arts department. One hopes these facilities will be good for the community beyond the universities, attracting teachers and students who will perform and compose and in general spread the positive vibes of musical culture.
But just for comparison’s sake: The entire federal budget for the National Endowment of the Arts in 2014 was $146.021 million — only a bit more than seven times what these two private donations to the two schools provide. The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation intends to distribute $50 million to individual artists over the course of its 10-year Performing Artists Awards commitment, and in 2014 alone the MacArthur Foundation conferred more than $13 million to 21 fellows considered to exhibit “exceptional merit and promise for continued and enhanced creative work,” mostly in the arts and humanities. The New York State Council on the Arts’ budget for grants in 2014-2015 is $35 million.
Buildings cost money and ought to last a long time. If money’s given to musicians, there’s no telling what will become of it — but it’s not likely there will be an edifice a proud philanthropist can point to and say, “I’m responsible for that.” On the other hand, these philanthropists are not funding art, they’re funding construction. There are good jobs in it, just not for musicians.
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