The University of Arizona School of Music will change its name to the Fred Fox School of Music after the son of the legendary horn player gifted the school $20 million.
The donation by Alan and Daveen Fox in Fred Fox's honor follows three years after the couple endowed the UA's Graduate Wind Quintet, also is named after Fred Fox, with $1.25 million.
FoxΒ played solo French horn with the National Symphony, the Minneapolis Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic and taught at several universities, including California State University, Northridge; the University of Southern California; the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara; and California State University, Los Angeles. One of his students was UA horn professor and performer Daniel Katzen.
"What a great way to start the year," said Jory Hancock, the UA College of Fine Arts dean. "There are probably fine arts colleges that get named for that price, and even then not very often. It will be gigantic push for the music school, and the faculty and staff there are definitely deserving. And it helps the entire college when a school receives a gift like that."
The School of Music will use the moneyΒ to fund the Alan C. and Daveen Fox Endowed Chair for the Director of the School of Music; the Fred Fox Endowed Chair for French Horn Studies; and the Daveen Fox Endowed Chair for Music. Another $2 million of the gift will be used to to create the Fox Family Scholarship Fund, an endowed fund to provide scholarships each year for up to three undergraduate students majoring in music and three graduate students whose studies emphasize brass instrument performance.
The School also will establish an endowed fund that will support the Fred Fox Graduate Wind Quintet in perpetuity.
Hancock said the school's name could be changed as early as mid-February, after the proposal goes through the proper channels including the Faculty Senate. The school will host a celebration of some sort and has invited Fox, 100, and his son and daughter-in-law.
"He's really happy that his name will be on this," Hancock said.
Hancock said that Fox and Katzen have remained close and Fox has come to the university over the years to conduct workshops and master classes.
"Fred loves to come here and work with the students and faculty and staff. When he comes he is of that generation where he is pretty demanding, expects a lot," Hancock said. "Students see that and they feel from Fred this kind o energy emanating from someone who is 100 years old and has a lot of energy, a real live wire."
Until this gift, the largest donation given to the UA College of Fine Arts were two $3 million gifts β one anonymous and another from Sandy Bolton.Β
