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LINDA AND JACK GILL PROFESSORSHIP IN CONDUCTING
ESTABLISHED AT IU WITH $500,000 GIFT
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The Indiana University School of Music announced today that Linda and Jack Gill, who reside in Houston, Texas, will give the school $500,000 to fund an endowed professorship in conducting.
To this figure will be added $250,000 from the IU President's Office, creating the Linda and Jack Gill Professorship in Conducting. The chair will enable the school to secure the world's top conductors for extended visits, workshops and orchestra concerts with IU music students.
The Gills also intend, as participants in the School of Music's new Opera Sponsorship program, to fund the Opera Theater's summer production of Puccini's La Boheme (July 30,31 and August 6,7) with $15,000. This is in addition to the existing Linda and Jack Gill Music Scholarship Fund administered by the Friends of Music, of which the Gills are lifetime members.
Their endowment is the latest in a series of news-making partnerships with the university. In late 1997, the Gills gave $5 million to the College of Arts and Sciences to establish the Linda and Jack Gill Center for Instrumentation and Measurement Science. In 1991, they endowed the George H. Challis Scholarship in the Kelley School of Business, named in honor of Mrs. Gill's father, a 1933 IU grad.
The recent visit to campus by New York Philharmonic music director Kurt Masur inspired this idea, according to David Woods, dean of the School of Music.
"We are very pleased that Mr. and Mrs. Gill have made such an important and lasting commitment to the future of great music and education," Woods said. "The Linda and Jack Gill Professorship in Conducting ensures continuity in our school's time-honored tradition of bringing to campus maestros from the world's very top echelons. Leaders of today, such as Kurt Masur of the New York Philharmonic, inspire, nurture and energize musicians of tomorrow."
Woods added that, under the aegis of this new professorship, the School of Music has already begun preparations for a return visit by Masur.
Jack Gill, an IU alumnus (Ph.D. 1962) and a 1999 recipient of the prestigious Horatio Alger Award, said, "For both Linda and me, this is an ideal partnership and a well-founded business decision. In order for the legacy of a great institution such as Indiana University to continue, we feel there is a need to become personally involved. I am a firm believer that education plays the critical role for success in one's life. I grew up in a poor family in a small town, but my father, who had a sixth-grade education, always told us to get all the education we could because that would open doors of opportunity for us."
"I would now like to share this opportunity with others," Gill added. "It would be hard to imagine a world without the restorative power of music or the universality of the arts."
Curtis R. Simic, President of the IU Foundation, said, "This is yet another magnificent expression of the Gills' deep interest in Indiana University, their passion for music, and their appreciation of the quality of our School of Music. We are deeply grateful for this generous commitment."
Jack Gill is a founder and general partner of Vanguard Venture Partners, a venture capital firm specializing in high technology start-ups, located in Palo Alto, Calif., and Houston, Texas. In 1970, Gill founded Autolab, which pioneered the application of microprocessor-based instruments and computers for chromatography laboratory applications. He is a native of Lufkin, Texas, and earned a chemistry and engineering degree from Lamar University in 1958 and a Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry from IU in 1962. He is currently a member of the IU deans' advisory boards of the School of Business and the College of Arts and Sciences, an adjunct professor of chemistry at IU, and a director of the IU Foundation.
Gill, whose son, Tyler, also graduated from Indiana (1994), comes by his love of music partly through his wife, Linda Challis Gill. Mrs. Gill is the granddaughter of Benedetto Challis, a baritone who sang at the opera houses of La Scala, Berlin and Vienna and was a contemporary of Siegfried Wagner and Enrico Caruso. Mrs. Gill's father, George Challis, is a first cousin of Indiana composer Cole Porter.
The Horatio Alger Award is presented annually by the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans to individuals who have faced and overcome significant personal adversity through hard work, integrity, determination and a strong dedication to helping others. The 1999 Horatio Alger Awards will be given at a ceremony in April in Washington, D.C., attended by President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.
For more information, contact the School of Music Office of Communications at 812-855-9846. An electronic version of this document, and an image and biographical materials of Jack Gill, are available at http://www.music.indiana.edu
Jack M. Gill is a founder and general partner of Vanguard Venture Partners, a venture capital firm specializing in high technology start-ups, located in Palo Alto, Calif., and Houston, Texas. Vanguard manages over $260 million of paid in capital and has been the lead investor in numerous highly successful companies such as Aldus, Digital Microwave Corp., Pyramid Technology, EndoSonics, Mycogen, EndoTherapeutics, Racotek, Macromedia, Network Appliance, Indigo Medical, CardioGenesis Corporation, Advanced Fibre Communications, CIENA Corporation, LightSpeed (CISCO) and Tut Systems. Vanguard Venture Partners specializes in start-up investments in the computer, communications, and life science industries throughout the USA.
Prior to co-founding Vanguard in October 1981, Gill was executive vice president and group manager of the Scientific Divisions of Spectra Physics Inc. Spectra Physics, formerly a NYSE- listed company and later acquired by Pharos, Sweden, was the world's largest manufacturer of commercial, scientific and industrial lasers and a leading manufacturer of laboratory computers and chromatography instrumentation.
In 1970, Gill founded Autolab, which pioneered the application of microprocessor-based instruments and computers for chromatography laboratory applications. Autolab was sold to Spectra Physics in 1972, and Gill remained as vice president and general manager as the business grew profitably to $70 million in sales and earned a leading market position. Autolab is now a subsidiary of Thermo Electron Inc.
Gill served as director of research and engineering of the Aerograph Division of Varian Associates from 1965-70, where he was responsible for a technical staff of 80. In this capacity, Gill authored 50 technical papers and lectured worldwide on gas chromatography, high-performance liquid chromatography, laboratory computerization and advances in instrumentation. Gill's earlier experience was with Monsanto Co. in St. Louis as a senior research chemist from 1962-65.
Gill is a native of Lufkin, Texas, and earned a chemistry and engineering degree from Lamar University in 1958 and a Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry from IU in 1962. He has lectured extensively throughout the United States, Europe and Asia on business and technical issues. Gill served as president of the Lamar University Foundation Board of Trustees from 1988-91. He is currently a member of the IU deans' advisory boards of the School of Business and the College of Arts and Sciences, and a director of the IU Foundation. He also serves as an adjunct professor at the Jesse Jones School of Business at Rice University in Houston and as an adjunct professor of chemistry at IU.
Gill is a director of LifeSpex Inc. (tissue spectroscopy), CardioGenesis (cardiovascular TMR), EndoVasix Inc. (catheter-based therapies for stroke), Percardia (novel cardiovascular perfusion), Itasca Ventures (Midwest medical incubator) and Novalux (lasers for communications).
(Maria Talbert, Assistant Director of Communications, School of Music, 812-856-5719, mtalbert@indiana.edu)