Chase foundation decides to stop funding violin competition

Screech. Worse than busting a string mid-performance, the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis lost a major corporate
gift less than two years from curtain time.

The world-renowned instrumental throw-down is looking to replace more than $25,000 in corporate support from the J.P. Morgan
Chase Foundation.

The competition, a $4 million event, is held every four years. The next wave of aspiring maestros is scheduled to hit Indy
in September 2010.

"Chase has been a major corporate supporter for many years, going all the way back to 1982 with Indiana National Bank,"
Executive Director Glen Kwok said. The
competition was founded in 1982 by concert violinist and Indiana University faculty member Josef Gingold.

In recent years,
the New York-based Chase foundation has refocused its giving on economic and community development.

"It’s actually been going
down that road for, I would say, five to eight years, but even more so the last two years," spokeswoman Nancy Norris
said.

Last year in Indiana, Chase doled out $2 million. Norris said the amount given last year didn’t decrease, but the number of
grants has shrunk from about 500 to about 100.

Kwok said Chase’s gift was much larger than its $25,000 amount suggests. The
organization had only about a half dozen corporate supporters, he said. "That’s why it’s very significant for us."

While courting
individual donors, Kwok is also making contingency plans. He said it’s difficult to scale back a quadrennial event, especially
one that has set the standard worldwide.

"Many, many competitions in the world have used ‘The Indianapolis’ as a model," he
said.