A new $1 million endowment created by the Kay Hardesty Logan Foundation will expand and extend Music at Noon: The Logan Series, which makes concert-level chamber music accessible to new audiences through informal lunchtime performances at Penn State Behrend.
The endowment will ensure the continuation of Music at Noon, which began in 1989 with a gift from Kay Logan, a musician, educator, and local arts advocate. Logan, who was the principal flutist with the Columbus Symphony for twenty years, died in 2016.
Music at Noon concerts are open to the public at no charge. A portion of the seating in McGarvey Commons is reserved for students from Diehl Elementary School.
The performers, who have included Grammy Award-winners ETHEL, the Harlem Quartet, and the Turtle Island Quartet, also stage one-day residencies at Diehl. They also sit in with music classes at Behrend.
“One of Mrs. Logan’s goals with the series was to break down unseen barriers between audiences and performers,” said Gary Viebranz, teaching professor of music and director of instrumental ensembles at Behrend. He has directed the Music at Noon series since 2007. “That’s been particularly effective at the elementary-school level, through our partnership with Diehl.”
Logan chose to host the concerts at Penn State
Behrend in part because the college does not offer a music major. She wanted to encourage students in business, engineering, and other disciplines to think philanthropically about art and “nurture that benevolent mindset,” Viebranz said.