SF’s Koret Foundation donates $500,000 to Green Music Center

ROHNERT PARK, March 25, 2009 – The San Francisco-based Koret Foundation has given $500,000 to the Donald and Maureen Green Music Center at Sonoma State University.

“In the San Francisco Bay Area, Koret adds to the region’s vitality in part by contributing to a diverse cultural landscape,” said Koret Board President Tad Taube. “A cultural gem like the Green Music Center helps vitalize the local economy and so is a particularly important project during these challenging economic times.”

The Green Music Center, a $110 million project, is the most recent in a long line of ventures supported by the Koret Foundation, including San Francisco’s new California Academy of Sciences, the de Young Museum and the Palace of Fine Arts.

The Sonoma State University grant will be acknowledged with the naming of the Koret Entry Plaza at the Green Music Center.

The Green Music Center comprises several buildings, including a centerpiece 1,400-seat concert hall, a 250-seat recital hall, a music education hall and a hospitality suite and executive conference center. The center was designed by William Rawn, architect for Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood in Massachuetts, which the Boston Symphony Orchestra calls home.

“This significant grant from the Koret Foundation has come at a critical juncture in our ongoing fundraising efforts. We have $16.9 million remaining to raise, and Koret’s show of support for the Green Music Center will encourage our other community partners to participate in this vital project for the region,” said Dr. Ruben Arminana, president of the university.

The Koret Foundation is a private philanthropic organization established in 1979 and has directed nearly $350 million toward philanthropic projects for the Bay Area and for Israel.

It is the second recent $500,000 donation to the project in recent months, the other coming in February from the Vadasz Family Foundation established by one of the founders of Intel Corp.