“When Mary Manoville and Tom Beck arrived in Canada in the early 1950s, Toronto was a refuge from war-torn Europe, but it did not offer the kind of culture they had experienced in the cities from which they arrived—Vienna and London,” writes Marsha Lederman in Thursday’s (10/10) Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada). “The Toronto Symphony Orchestra was an exception, a place they were both drawn to and attended whenever they could afford the money for tickets and—once they met and married—babysitting…. Tom died in 2015 and Mary in 2018. Their daughter Cathy Beck became the TSO’s board chair in 2016. On Thursday night at Roy Thomson Hall, where incoming artistic director Gustavo Gimeno conducted the TSO, the orchestra’s chief executive officer Matthew Loden announced a $10-million donation from the Becks’ estate—the largest single donation in the TSO’s history…. Loden [said] that over their lifetime, the Becks had donated more than $20 million to the TSO. ‘It’s a very rare breed of philanthropist that is so wonderfully altruistic …’ This new gift … will go toward expanding the chamber music program, offering more relaxed concerts for people on the neurodiverse or autism spectrum, and toward musician-led programs.”
Posted October 15, 2019
