Recent gifts from Dunard Fund USA, a private foundation, will endow two professorships at Yale School of Music: a named viola professorship and a visiting professorship in the practice of music, a position that will give the school unprecedented flexibility to explore new curricular options.
The viola professorship will be named in honor of Richard D. Colburn, an amateur violist and noted philanthropist with a lifelong passion for classical music and music education. The professorship will commemorate Colburn’s dedication to his instrument and music education while helping the school attract and retain the finest viola faculty in perpetuity.
The gift’s support of visiting professors with a demonstrated academic or professional background in classical music is not limited to any single area of expertise. As a result, it can be used to bolster the school’s offerings in any number of subjects, from conducting and programming to recording and music pedagogy.
“It goes to our mission and the core of what we do, while at the same time allowing for experimentation,” says José García-León, the Henry and Lucy Moses Dean of the Yale School of Music. “It’s a brilliant way to allow us to have world-class faculty depending on the needs of the moment,” he says.