CORAL GABLES, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Phillip and Patricia Frost School of Music at the University of Miami was awarded a $7.5 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation at a March 8 community gathering at the Perez Art Museum Miami.
Alberto Ibargüen, president and CEO of the Knight Foundation announced the funding. It will be used to name and support construction of a new John S. and James L. Knight Recital Hall at the Frost School of Music, located on UM’s Coral Gables campus.
This generous gift – when combined with other donor pledges, including $2 million from the Paul J. DiMare Foundation and $1.2 million from Dorothy and David Weaver – will enable the Frost School of Music to move forward with the final design and construction of the estimated $15 million project.
Knight Foundation’s naming gift also puts the Frost School of Music over its $40 million fundraising goal for Momentum2: The Breakthrough Campaign for the University of Miami.
The Frost School, Ibargüen said, is already considered one of the top music schools in the country and will now “build a high-tech recital hall befitting its reputation.”
He announced the gift in conjunction with a total $25 million Knight Foundation investment in South Florida that also includes $5 million for the Perez Art Museum Miami, and $5 million for the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami. The balance will be allocated to fund challenge seed grants via the Knight Arts Challenge in South Florida through 2018.
“Great art defines and lifts the soul of a community. The arts create a sense of place and help bind us to each other with common experience. They help us explain the way we feel and represent who we are,” Ibargüen said. “Knight’s goal is to help build the community we all want to live in, a community where art is general and available to everyone, in all of our neighborhoods.”
To read the full release, visit: http://www.miami.edu/frost/index.php/frost/media/frost_news/75_million_knight_foundation_grant_will_help_fund_a_new_recital_hall_at_the_frost_school_of_music/
