August 11, 2011 | Read Time: 1 minute
The Eugene B. Casey Foundation has donated $17.2-million to establish an endowment for Washington, D.C.’s Duke Ellington School of the Arts, Washington TV station WJLA says.
The city’s only arts-focused public high school has trimmed its staff in recent years as private and municipal support tailed off.
The Casey gift will primarily benefit Ellington’s instrumental and vocal music programs, in which nearly half its students are enrolled, according to a school statement.
In other arts news:
• Organizers of a new effort to revive symphonic music in Syracuse following the demise of the city’s symphony unveiled details of the Syracuse University-led plan Monday, The Post-Standard writes.
The Syracuse Philharmonic Society has retained the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra’s conductor and could begin performing immediately but will take about five years to develop into a stable full-time orchestra, leaders said. The philharmonic will be operated out of the university’s Setnor School of Music.
• The Jewish Theatre San Francisco announced that it will close after completing its 2011-12 program, reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
Fund-raising difficulties and questions over “whether there is still a need for a specifically Jewish theater in the Bay Area” contributed to the decision to close after the organization’s 35th season of presenting primarily new Jewish works, Sara Schwartz Geller, the executive director, said.
