For more information contact:
Laura Slay, President
Slay & Associates
314-504-0081 or lslay@slayandassociates.com
For Immediate Release:
SINQUEFIELD CHARITABLE FOUNDATION ESTABLISHES
NEW MUSIC PROGRAM AT UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI
COLUMBIA, MO, March 9, 2009 -- Dr. Jeanne Sinquefield, who started the yearly Creating Original Music Project (COMP) with the University of Missouri School of Music in 2005 with a gift from the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation, is donating $1 million in the next four years to create a new music program focusing on composition at the university's music school.
With an ultimate goal of making Columbia a center for music composition, Dr. Sinquefield is establishing a new program at the university that complements COMP, a statewide project that gives students in grades K-12 the opportunity to write original works in diverse musical styles. Levels of competition and accepted categories of music, such as fine art, popular, jazz, folk and sacred, are based on students' grade levels.
"We are grateful to receive this generous donation from Dr. Sinquefield and the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation," said Dr. Robert Shay, director of the University of Missouri's School of Music. "The addition of a program designed to encourage gifted students to test their creative mettle in music composition is exciting news for the entire university and devotees of new music everywhere."
Full scholarships will be awarded to undergraduate students majoring in composition. The new program will include the creation of an ensemble for new music, offering assistantships or scholarships on the master's degree level for performers of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion, piano, French horn and trumpet, as well as in conducting and for a publicity/business coordinator.
Additionally, the donation will include funding new faculty and staff and extension courses, as well as film development and a roster of visiting speakers.
"I am excited about the possibilities this program will bring to the University of Missouri's School of Music," said Dr. Sinquefield. "While it may seem a stretch to mention Columbia in the same category as such new music bastions as Paris, Vienna and New York City, who would have thought years ago that Santa Fe would join the ranks of the world's top opera sites? We are limited only by our imagination and the amount of hard work we are willing to invest to achieve our dreams."
Dr. Sinquefield and her husband, retired fund manager Rex Sinquefield, set up the Sinquefield Charitable Foundation in 2005 to support a variety of charitable interests and causes. Headquartered in Osage County, Missouri, the foundation has a history of supporting organizations that enhance music, art and education. Dr. Sinquefield greatly values the life-long benefits of exposure to music. Her passion for music comes alive each season as a bassist in the Columbia Civic Orchestra, the 9th Street Philharmonic Orchestra in Columbia and the Jefferson City Symphony Orchestra.
Dr. Sinquefield received her MBA and Ph.D. in demography from the University of Chicago. She serves on the steering committee for the University of Missouri-Columbia and has been recognized by UMC president Gordon Lamb as one of the "Missouri 100" for her service to and work with the university.
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