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Arts Patron James C. Armstrong Makes $1 Million Gift

January 6, 2009
  • Who: Austin Symphony Orchestra
  • Contact: Don Hill, Director of Public Relations - 476-6064 x 213

For Immediate Release:

Austin, TX – The Austin Symphony Orchestra (ASO) announced today it has received an extraordinary $1 million pledge from Austin arts patron James Armstrong to endow the ASO’s award-winning education programs. The James C. Armstrong Youth Education Program for the Austin Symphony will consist of the orchestra’s Building Blocks, Young People’s Concerts, and High School Concerts, among others, enhancing and expanding all the programs that comprise the entire Youth Education Program.

Armstrong has been a staunch and enthusiastic supporter of the ASO’s Young People’s Concerts (YPC) – a week-long event that buses 4th and 5th graders to the Long Center for the Performing Arts for a 45 minute concert of classical music choreographed with images projected on a 30 foot screen behind the orchestra. The concert features music the children have heard all year in various classes at school via study guides designed and published by the Austin Symphony. While attending his first YPC, he was amazed at the attentiveness of the students and the outstanding organization where upwards of 3,000 students leave the auditorium and are replaced very quickly by 3,000 more.

With his gift to the Austin Symphony Endowment Fund, the ASO will continue to reach over 90,000 children each year as they hear members of the Austin Symphony Orchestra play for them. Because of their exposure to classical music at an early age, the double impact of his gift is that as adults, many of them will become future symphony supporters.

James Armstrong has such passion and courage as he pursues his love of all of the arts in Austin. His enthusiasm for the Austin Symphony Orchestra and his desire to give the children of Austin a steady diet of symphonic music, from first grade through high school, is an outstanding gift to the citizens of the Greater Austin area.