Washington Arts Groups Receive $58-Million From Financier; Other Gifts

Three Washington arts groups and two Pennsylvania higher-education institutions have received large gifts:

• Alberto W. Vilar, a New York investor, has pledged $58-million to two Washington performing-arts organizations.

  Mr. Vilar will give $50-million to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to bring the Kirov Opera and the Kirov Ballet to the center for annual performances over 10 years, and to establish the Vilar Institute for Arts Management to train arts managers and board members. His donation is the single largest received by the Kennedy Center.

  Mr. Vilar, who founded Amerindo Investment Advisors, has also pledged $8-million to the Washington Opera, where $5-million of his donation will help establish the Young Artists Training Program, and approximately $3-million will go for production of “Tales of Hoffman,” “Ballo in Maschera,” and Verdi’s “Requiem.”

• Two AOL executives and their wives have donated $30-million to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, in Washington, to help finance an addition to the museum.

  The cash gift, from Robert W. and Veronique Pittman and Barry M. and Tracy Schuler, of Great Falls, Va., will go to the Corcoran’s $120-million capital campaign, which will begin this fall and will support the design and construction of a new wing and renovation of the museum’s existing building. The museum would not say how much each couple contributed.

  Mr. Pittman, 47, is co-chief executive officer of AOL Time Warner, in New York. He served as president and chief executive officer of America Online before its merger with Time Warner in January. Mr. Schuler, also 47, is chairman and chief executive officer of AOL, in Dulles, Va. Both Mr. Pittman and Mr. Schuler serve on the board of the Corcoran.

• Allegheny College, in Meadville, Pa., has received a $22.2-million pledge from Robert A. Vukovich, of Holmdel, N.J., founder of Wellspring Pharmaceutical Corporation, in Colts Neck, N.J., and his wife, Laura J. DiMichele-Vukovich, an executive vice president at Wellspring.

  The couple gave $4.6-million outright, and pledged to give the remaining $17.7-million through three charitable lead trusts. In a typical charitable lead trust, donated assets are invested and a percentage is paid to the charity until the donor’s death, after which the remainder goes to the donor’s heirs.

  A portion of the donation is earmarked to help construct and endow a theater and communications building. The college has yet to determine how it will use the remainder of the money.

• Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh, has received a $20-million pledge from an anonymous donor. The gift will benefit arts and humanities programs.

Other recent gifts:

Hopkins School (New Haven, Conn.):

$10-million pledge from John C. Malone, chairman of Liberty Media Group, a cable-television company in Englewood, Colo., and a 1959 graduate of the school, to help build a dining facility and student center.

Lamar U. Foundation (Beaumont, Tex.): $1-million from Michael Aldredge, of Belleville, Tex., former chairman of Puffer-Sweiven, an equipment manufacturer in Stafford, Tex., and his wife, Patricia, a 1961 graduate of the university, to establish a professorship in the college of engineering.

Louisiana State U. (Baton Rouge): $3-million from Paula Garvey Manship, of Baton Rouge, whose late husband published The Advocate, to help build an art museum.

Manchester College (North Manchester, Ind.): $1-million pledge from Emily Flory, of Portola Valley, Calif., whose late husband, Paul, was a professor at Stanford University and received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1974, to help expand the college’s science center.

Moorestown Friends School (N.J.): $3-million from Mel Baiada, president of Sengen, an Internet company in Mount Laurel, N.J., and his wife, Diane, for the school’s arts and athletics programs.

Rochester Area Community Foundation (N.Y.): $12.3-million bequest from Nettie Bullis, of Macedon, N.Y., a retired corporate secretary and investor who died in 1979 at age 86, to establish the Bullis Advised Fund.

U. of Kentucky (Lexington): $10-million from an anonymous donor; $2-million from Chris Sullivan, of Tampa, Fla., who founded the Outback Steakhouse chain of restaurants; $1-million from Warren Rosenthal, of Lexington, who owns Patchen Wilkes Farm; and $1-million from an anonymous donor, all to expand the endowment of the university’s William T. Young Library.

U. of Maryland at College Park: $10-million from Philip Merrill, publisher of The Capital, in Annapolis, Md., and Washingtonian magazine, to the university’s journalism school, which will be named after Mr. Merrill, for computer equipment, fellowships and scholarships, marketing programs, and professorships .