LSO awarded two new grants

From staff reports
Published: July 22, 2008

The Lynchburg Symphony Orchestra has received two more grants, which total $10,500 and add to the group’s recent success in raising funds through grantwriting.

One of the two grants announced this week awards $7,000 to underwrite the makeover of storage space for LSO’s library of music — a collection it has been amassing for some 25 years. That money comes from the Richard Gwathmey and Caroline T. Gwathmey Memorial Trust.

The other grant, for $3,500, will help support the orchestra’s twice-yearly concerts that expose more than 2,000 Central Virginia grade-schoolers to music. The grant comes from Target.

“Rick (Piester, the LSO’s executive director) has done wonderful things with grants,” said Cary T. Roberts, president of the orchestra’s board of directors.

Since June 1, the beginning of the LSO fiscal year, Piester has brought in approximately $28,000 in grant money, she said.

Getting grants is important because the LSO is a paid orchestra, not one made up of volunteer musicians, Roberts said. It costs between $11,000 and $12,000 each time the musicians show up to perform, and she said that’s only half of the total price tag for putting on a concert.

“So we’re grateful for these grants,” Roberts said.

While the smaller of the two, the Target grant marks the first time the Minneapolis-based company has made an award to the Lynchburg orchestra, she said.

“We’ve been hoping and trying to get the attention of Target, and we finally have,” Roberts said.

Laysha Ward, Target vice president of community relations, was quoted in the LSO’s announcement as saying, “We’re proud to partner with the very fine Lynchburg Symphony Orchestra as part of our ongoing commitment to give back to the communities where our customers and team members live and work.”

The LSO’s program brings in fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders from Lynchburg city schools — and neighboring school districts ranging from Charlottesville to Prince Edward County — to the auditorium at E.C. Glass High School.

There, they hear a program designed to appeal to them, with selections of fine music drawn from familiar attractions such as movies they likely have seen, Roberts said.

“For most of these kids, it’s the first time they’ve ever heard an orchestral performance,” Roberts said.

The Gwathmey grant, meanwhile, will help preserve the orchestra’s music library, which she described as “a real asset.”

The LSO will be able to replace deteriorating shelving and purchase library-quality storage boxes for its collection of more than 700 works of music stored in the orchestra’s office in the Court Street United Methodist Church in Lynchburg.

“It’s going to allow us to take better care of our music and have better access to our music,” Roberts said. Plus, she said, the orchestra also rents, buys or borrows some music for performances, and the new space will allow it to expand its collection.

The grant is “such a blessing,” she said.