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Violin teacher donates $7 million to USC Thornton School of Music

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It’s not unusual for philanthropic gifts to come with strings attached, but the $7-million donation that USC’s Thornton School of Music is announcing Friday from a longtime professor, violinist Alice Schoenfeld, is a gift attached to strings.

The money establishes a new endowment whose earnings will provide scholarships for students studying stringed instruments. The strings department currently has 74 students.

It comes on top of a $3-million donation from Schoenfeld that was announced in the fall, for a newly renovated hall previously used by USC’s film school that is now a symphonic rehearsal space with recording capabilities.

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Both the symphonic hall and the scholarship fund are named in honor of Schoenfeld, who began teaching at USC in 1960, and her late sister, Eleonore, a cellist who also taught for many years at USC and was Alice’s performing partner in a decades-long international concert career.

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