Portland couple's $1 million gift tops off money needed for construction

EUGENE—Portland’s Thelma and Gilbert Schnitzer have answered a matching gift challenge issued by Business Wire founder Lorry Lokey with a $1 million contribution for a major expansion and renovation of the University of Oregon’s MarAbel B. Frohnmayer Music Building.

The Schnitzers’ gift puts fundraising efforts for the $17.8 million construction phase of the project over the top, UO President Dave Frohnmayer announced Friday, Nov. 3, during groundbreaking ceremonies featuring performances by students in the UO School of Music and Dance.

Frohnmayer announced that the building’s new performance wing will be named for Thelma Schnitzer, a 1940 UO music graduate. He also said the new academic wing will be named for Leona DeArmond, a 1951 UO music graduate. Leona and her husband, Bob, have been key contributors toward the project.

"This project is a gift to all Oregonians and we are delighted that the new wings of this building will carry the names of such outstanding alumni," Frohnmayer said. “The University of Oregon is home to one of the top three music schools on the West Coast. Two years from now, our music building will at long last reflect our music faculty’s national and international reputation for excellence."

The first significant campus construction for music in nearly three decades, the project will increase the size of the music building by 50 percent, renovate existing facilities, and marry old and new portions of the building to achieve an integrated whole.

Currently, 500 music majors study music in quarters meant to accommodate 300 music majors and about half as many faculty members as the school has today. An additional 4,000 non-majors take courses in the music building over the course of the academic year. The original classrooms and Beall Concert Hall, acclaimed as one of the nation’s finest chamber music venues, were built in 1921. These connect with modest additions made in 1951 and 1978 and improvements provided in the 1960s.

Schnitzer gift stands for two great loves

The Schnitzers, who celebrated their 68th wedding anniversary in July, were unable to attend the groundbreaking. In a telephone interview, they shared their reasons for increasing their original pledge of $250,000 for the project to a total of $1.25 million.

"Music is my passion," said Thelma, a 1940 UO music graduate known for her philanthropic support of the arts. "We are doing this because of our love for music. We want that love to grow in the next generations. It enriches us to do this for people."

Gilbert, a 1940 UO business graduate who founded Schnitzer Investment Corporation, says the gift also memorializes his "lifelong love affair" with Thelma. "I am a lucky man," he said happily. "I have a lovely wife."

If not for Gilbert, Thelma said, she would have gone to The Juilliard School. Both were just fifteen when Gilbert spotted Thelma, from the window of his father’s downtown Portland office, as she walked to a piano lesson. Gilbert said he lost little time in finding an opportunity to invite her to dancing lessons. With the exception of their first two years in college (Gilbert at UO, Thelma at the University of Washington), they’ve been inseparable ever since.

Now 87, the pair married just before the start of their junior year. Thelma transferred to the UO, where she studied with George Hopkins, a legendary piano professor. "He was marvelous, just wonderful," she said of Hopkins, with whom she continued to study after graduation.

Project timeline

Work is expected to start in early 2007 on two significant additions, the Thelma Schnitzer Performance Wing and the Leona DeArmond Academic Wing.

Project funding

A total of $10.2 million in private contributions has leveraged the allocation of $7.6 million in bonds by the Oregon Legislature. Lead donors include the DeArmonds, the Schnitzers, Lokey, who has contributed a total of $5 million, and Kathleen Daugherty Richards Grubbe of Eugene.

Project scope

Plans designed by BOORA Architects of Portland call for 29,000 square feet of new construction plus renovation of 15,000 square feet. When complete, the building will be enlarged to a total of 90,000 square feet including Beall Hall.

The performance wing, to be located on the northeast corner of the existing building, will contain a symphony-sized rehearsal hall. The existing choral rehearsal room will be reborn as Thelma Schnitzer Hall, a versatile and intimate performance and teaching venue with permanent risers, state-of-the-art audio-visual equipment, and a grand piano. Other improvements include new, dedicated rehearsal spaces for the jazz program, the addition of a dedicated percussion studio and percussion classrooms and master classrooms, a new recording studio, and new practice rooms for students.

The academic wing, to be built next to the Pioneer Cemetery, will enclose a historic courtyard that will be made into a beautiful, central gathering space, and named in honor of Leona DeArmond’s voice professor, the late Penny Vanderwicken Duprey. The academic wing will provide new teaching studios for the Community Music Institute, a new music education teaching lab that also will serve as a 65-seat classroom and high-tech recital space, two new 35-seat classrooms and additional practice rooms for students – which will nearly double the number of practice rooms for students.

Renovation highlights include makeovers for four seminar rooms; expanded, secure areas for the electronic music program; an increase in the number of offices for administration; and construction of approximately 28 new acoustically isolated faculty teaching studios.

The $17.8-million project is the first phase of a long-range, comprehensive plan for improving UO music and dance facilities. The plan addresses anticipated future needs for Phase 2, which could include an additional concert hall, more faculty teaching studios and additional renovation work.

New fundraising goals

The additions will likely increase annual operating costs by more than $50,000, according to the school’s dean, Brad Foley.

"Responsible stewardship of these new facilities will require an endowment to cover increased operating costs," Foley said. "Efforts also are under way to raise funds for classroom media, risers, student seating, and faculty studio furnishings. We also need at least 19 new pianos to equip the new faculty teaching studios, classrooms, and rehearsal rooms."

With money already in hand to cover construction costs, Foley said the school’s new fundraising list includes a $1.5 million endowment for building operations, $1 million for pianos and $600,000 for equipment, furnishings and instruments for the building.

Founded as a music department in 1886, formally designated a School of Music in 1900 and admitted to the National Association of Schools of Music in 1928, the UO School of Music and Dance is one of just three professional music schools on the West Coast offering degrees through the doctoral level and the only such school in the Oregon University System. The school is the birthplace of the Grammy-winning Oregon Bach Festival.

Posted: November 3, 2006