SUNY Distinguished Professor Claudette Sorel
The SUNY Fredonia School of Music has received an $600,000 endowment gift from The Elizabeth and Michel Sorel Organization that ensures continuing robust support of SOM programming through the new Claudette Sorel Music Endowment.
The endowment honors the vision of the benefactor and memorializes the incredible life journey of Claudette Sorel as an accomplished pianist, a world-class performer and a SUNY Distinguished Professor who taught in the School of Music. Unique opportunities will be provided by the endowment for Fredonia students, staff, faculty and community members to experience educational enrichment and cultural enhancement.
The gift was announced April 26 in Juliet J. Rosch Recital Hall, quite fittingly, just prior to the start of the program, “On Stage with Valerie Coleman,” that featured the internationally renowned composer and 2023-2024 Sorel Visiting Artist. School of Music faculty and staff members Assistant Professor Barry Crawford on flute and I-Fei Chen on piano, along with students who performed Ms. Coleman’s works, were also featured.
President Stephen H. Kolison Jr. and School of Music Dean David A. Stringham offered remarks and accepted the gift from Wende Persons, a SUNY Fredonia alumnus and managing director of The Sorel Organization, and Walter Killmer, president of The Sorel Organization.
Ms. Persons, who earned a Mus.B. in Music Education in 1974 and is a former piano student of Miss Sorel, presented a $350,000 check to President Kolison and a pledge of another $250,000 to be fulfilled later this year.
“Over the past 16 years, our School of Music has enjoyed a deepening relationship with The Sorel Organization,” Dr. Stringham said.
“We are honored to be entrusted with this transformational gift and the opportunity to steward Ms. Sorel's vision. We are immensely grateful to Ms. Persons and The Sorel Organization board, as well as June Miller-Spann, director of Development, and our colleagues at the Fredonia College Foundation,” Stringham added.
Sorel created a foundation in 1996, the Elizabeth and Michel Sorel Charitable Organization, named in honor of her parents.
Miss Sorel, as Persons said she was known by her students, taught them to listen and problem solve in their music making. “She never told us what to do; she rarely demonstrated. She didn’t want us to play like her. She would correct our hand position or give us tips on technique, but she wanted us to find our way,” she explained.
“I was one of the lucky ones to study with her,” Persons remarked, “and I was wowed by the force of this tiny, formidable woman!”
Grants to SUNY Fredonia followed with the founding of the Sorel Organization, resulting in, among many initiatives, creation of the annual Claudette Sorel Piano Competition that has attracted young talented musicians, ages 15 to 28, from all over the United States as well as 10 foreign countries for the last eight years.
Trustees of the Sorel Organization believe that the best way to continue Sorel’s mission is to set up an endowment for others to continue the work to create a more equitable music world in perpetuity, said Persons, who joined its advisory board in 2005.
“What better place to concentrate on the areas she envisioned than a music school? And what better place than Fredonia?” Persons said. The School of Music is the home of the Institute for Composer Diversity, she added, which tracks orchestras across the country. “I am thrilled that the institute is housed at Fredonia,” she added.
The endowment will support opportunities in perpetuity by advancing individuals engaged in all aspects of music, including performances, workshops, residencies, artistic collaboration and educational partnerships.
