Klingenstein Con

A landmark gift of $3 million to the arts at Emma Willard will name the concert and community gathering hall within the Alice Dodge Wallace ’38 Center for the Performing Arts.

Emma Willard School has received an inspirational investment of $3 million from Sally Klingenstein Martell ’85 toward a state-of-the-art concert hall and community space, which will be named in her honor. The Klingenstein Concert Hall will be the centerpiece of the new Wallace Center for the Performing Arts and fulfill a key priority in Emma Willard’s plan to advance the arts through the school’s strategic plan and comprehensive campaign.

The new concert hall will feature seating for 450 people, a convertible stage platform for three different types of performances and gatherings, allnew audiovisual technology, and more. The space is currently under construction and anticipated to open in 2024.

The arts have long been a fixture of the Emma Willard experience and with time have become interwoven with the traditions shared across generations of alumnae. Reflecting on her own time at Emma, Sally credits the arts with playing a transformational role in her education and as the ultimate inspiration for her gift.

SALLY KLINGENSTEIN MARTELL ’85 MAKES NAMING GIFT TO NEW ARTS CENTER

“I took this amazing class called ‘Arts in the Renaissance’ and I remember Russell Locke taught the music portion, exposing us to all of this incredible music from that era. And there was an art history component and also literature. So this showed me how you could take a deep dive into an academic subject through the lens of the arts, and that was just transformative for me.”

Sally went on to become an art history major at Tulane, working in art galleries during her early career, and later completed a MFA in creative writing before taking up the writing of her first novel. Her hope is that future generations of Emma students will be inspired to pursue the arts, just as she did.