MTT orchestra receives $10 million gift
NewsMiami’s New World Symphony, founded by Michael Tilson Thomas, has received $10m from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to help extend the symphony’s Knight New Media Center and advance its work in ‘the integration of technology with music performance, education and community engagement.’
MTT, who is living with brain cancer, was on stage to receive the gift.
MTT, like Leonard Bernstein by the way, is of Ukrainian ancestry, I think he would agree that the Ukrainians can do a lot more with $10M than the New World Symphony.
Say what you will about eccentric billionaires and what they throw money at, but at least Elon Musk is financing the entire Ukrainian internet.
The gift is for the NWS, not MTT or Leonard Bernstein. How many millions have you donated to Ukraine?
Your attempt at concern trolling is lamed.
Worthy causes do not exclude one another, in general, but the question is, does anyone care to observe the intended vs. achieved results? Follow the money?
If you donate responsibly, you will not buy a feeling of being a good person. It is a project.
By the way, before the war, Ukraine was known for corruption, like Russia, or more. How much of a dollar/euro to help Ukrainian people actually go to them? Pay attention before paying bills.
Feel free to donate your money as you see fit. There are starving people all over the world who could probably do more with the $10 million than the Ukrainians, too.
Its so strange that you greet a gift to the arts with criticism. There are many other deserving things he could have given it to. He can choose what he endows. Why do you feel disdainful of him. I’m sorry for you.
Let us leave aside, for the moment, the larger (and very serious) question about the propriety of arts patronage in an era of climate crisis, corrosive societal ills resulting from economic hyper-inequality, and the reemergence of global authoritarianism.
The fact is that the James L. Knight Foundation was chartered to support work in Journalism, Media and the Arts; that is the limit of its mandate.
To return to the larger question… In the struggle to make the world a more habitable, safer, and equitable home for each other, we must always remember that finding expression for what makes us (each and all) human is an integral part of that effort. That search is eminently worthy of support, at all times.
Documenting, reporting and disseminating information on war crimes in Ukraine would be well within its mandate of “Journalism, Media”.
Wonderful! Congratulations!
An irony that Miami doesn’t not have a professional symphony orchestra (i.e. a substantial season and budget,) but a training orchestra for students that rotates its personnel every three years gets ten million. All of that in spite of
Miami’s great wealth. Where but the USA?