Music school donor dies at 103

Ione Auer, a public supporter of the IU Jacobs School of Music, passed away earlier this week. She was 103.\nThe Jacobs School of Music greatly appreciated Auer, whose name adorns a performance hall in the Simon Music Center, said Jennifer Naab, an employee in the office of Gwyn Richard, the music school's dean.\nAuer joined the Society of the Friends of Music, a fundraising organization that supports the music school, in the early 1970s through a relationship with Robert Schilling, the president of the society from 1970 to 1972. Over the next two decades she became a board member of the society, Naab said.\nHer donation of $2.5 million led to the creation of Auer Hall within the Simon Music Center, which holds nearly 400 patrons. Auer Hall "quickly became the primary venue for chamber and solo-sized performances for a broad geographic area," Naab said.\nIn 1992 the Jacobs School of Music hired a Los Angeles organ designer to construct the first and only performance pipe organ on campus in Auer Hall, according to a news release from the music school. The job was supposed to be completed in 1997, but the designer filed for bankruptcy in 2005, leaving the school in legal arbitration. Alain Barker, the music school's marketing director, said progress is being made to have the organ finished.\nNaab said Auer's donation is one that will continue to benefit students for years to come. \n"Ione Auer's gift to Indiana will live well beyond our time," Naab said, "as young emerging artists will take the stage of her hall to display their newly realized potential"