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What Your Gift Can Support

The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center presents work that is transformational. We provide myriad opportunities for engagement beyond performances, allowing for deeper connection and understanding among students, faculty, artists and community. As a partner in these endeavors, donors play an active role in enabling our students, faculty and artists to transform lives through the performing arts. Here's what you can do:

Invest in Artist Residencies
Commission New Work
Sponsor a Performance
Support Scholarships
Support Faculty Fellowships
Contribute to the Piano Fund
Help Us Gain National Recognition
Create Your Own Legacy

Artist Residencies

Student Asha Srinivasan
Kronos Quartet Residency

In our approach to programming, we are committed to deepening relationships between visiting artists, campus, and our local community through extended artist residencies, which may span several weeks or a whole semester, and may involve multiple visits over multiple seasons or a full year living in the community. Each of our visiting artists provides opportunities for engagement far beyond performances through events such as workshops, pre- and post-show discussions, master classes, web blogs, community engagement initiatives and open rehearsals.

Commissioned Work

One of the purposes of a great university is to contribute to the store of human knowledge. By commissioning new work, we make that contribution. Our primary interest in supporting new work lies in illuminating the creative process for our communities. This requires ongoing two-way communication between the Center and the artist, which we use to find ways to bring the public into the process. Artists with whom we partner share our desire to increase engagement between the public and artists, so commissioning creates a foundation for extended residencies and learning opportunities.

Susan Marshall, Sawdust Palace

Since the Center's opening just seven years ago, we have commissioned more than 30 works. Commissioned works in the current and last season include Later the Same Evening: an opera inspired by five paintings of Edward Hopper (a joint project of the National Gallery of Art, the Center, and the University of Maryland School of Music); Margaret Jenkins Dance Company's A Slipping Glimpse; Susan Marshall & Company's Sawdust Palace; a new work for Kronos Quartet; David Rousseve's Saudade; 500 Clown's 500 Clown and the Elephant Deal; a new work by jazz artist Steve Wilson; and David Gonzalez's Wounded Splendor.

Scholarships

Learning is central to changing the way people live in the world. Students at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center have the profound advantage of learning in a world-class facility, engaging with faculty and artists who are transforming the way we think, accessing information from a high-quality performing arts library, and participating in cross-disciplinary collaborations. Scholarships are a top priority and providing opportunities for the best and brightest performing arts students to earn a Maryland education strengthens not only the institution, but greater society as well. Your support helps ensure that we have significant financial aid to make our academic units more competitive with the top performing arts programs in the country—and to offer opportunities that transform students lives.

Download Transformation Articles:
Valerie Branch: Taking The Long Way 'Round
Thembi Duncan: Finish What You Started
Lindsay Walters: Building a Life Around Music

Support for Faculty

It is vital that we have the resources to attract accomplished and gifted faculty—artists and scholars who are at the vanguard of their disciplines and who bring new perspectives and ideas to the curriculum. Having endowed faculty chairs will enable us to attract nationally recognized leaders in the performing arts who will take our students to new levels of greatness.

Piano Fund

In every field, there are essential tools that make us stronger. In the performing arts, the piano is such a tool, providing rhythm and music for dance, live accompaniment for musical theater and all the sounds of the orchestra in a single instrument. We were fortunate to be able to purchase a large number of new pianos when the center opened. A piano endowment allows us to maintain these great instruments and purchase new ones to support teaching and enhance performance. What could be more fitting for the home of the International Piano Archives at Maryland, the William Kapell International Piano Competition and Festival, and our talented students and faculty?

In Prestigious Company: National Recognition for the University

In June 2006, the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center was one of only three university performing arts institutions in the country to have been awarded a Leading College and University Presenters Program grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. The $1.125 million grant will support:

extended residencies with artists with an emphasis on deeper engagement and experiential learning
a series of public creative dialogues with artists and scholars
development of print and electronic resources for self-directed exploration of the arts
commissions of new works by artists interested in sharing their creative processes with the public.

"Campus-based presenters have access to a unique combination of intellectual, technological and physical resources that could significantly enrich the creative process and experience for artists, faculty, students, and local residents," says Joan E. Spero, president of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. "We are excited to seed ideas through these grants for innovative ways to deepen relationships and expand collaborations between artists and institutions of higher education."

We are required to match the foundation's artistic programming support on a 1:1 basis, and to match the endowment funds on a 2:1 basis. We have met the endowment portion of the match but now need to meet the programming match.

While this generous grant confirms the choices we've made, it also challenges us to increase our level of support for our distinctive programs. With your investment we can meet this challenge.

Create Your Own Legacy

The Center is nationally recognized for distinctive programming and artistic quality. Endowment gifts secure the future of our work by providing a permanent and steady source of income for performances, artists residencies, new works, and unparalleled growth opportunities for students. There are many opportunities to support established endowed funds at the Center and in our performing arts academic units, including naming a seat or naming a room.

There are also opportunities to create your own legacy to transform lives through the arts. Your gift of $25,000 or more will establish a separate endowed fund.

Please contact Heidi Onkst or Ed Lewis to make your gift today and change the way we interact with the world.

In Prestigious Company: National Recognition for the University of Maryland

In June 2006, the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center received a $1.125 million grant from the Leading College and University Presenters Program of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. We are required to match the foundation's artistic programming support on a 1:1 basis and to match the endowment funds on a 2:1 basis. We have met the endowment portion of this match, and the endowment will now generate a funding stream dedicated to sustaining artistic programs over the long term. Learn more!