The Cleveland Orchestra’s Distinguished Service Award

The Cleveland Orchestra is proud to honor Jane B. Nord as the 2022–23 recipient of the Distinguished Service Award, recognizing extraordinary service to the Orchestra.

Marguerite Humphrey, Chair

Richard J. Bogomolny

Robert Conrad

André Gremillet

Dennis W. LaBarre

Robert P. Madison

Amb. John D. Ong

Clara Taplin Rankin

Richard K. Smucker

Meredith Smith Weil

JANE NORD , like many thousands of Cleveland-area students, first experienced The Cleveland Orchestra by attending an Education Concert as a child. She credits that concert with instilling in her a lasting love for music, which has brought her immense joy over the intervening years. This transformative moment in Jane’s life has motivated her to provide students across the Greater Cleveland region with similarly inspiring musical experiences. With a gift of $2.25 million in 2013, she endowed The Eric & Jane Nord Family Fund in support of The Cleveland Orchestra’s education and community programs, which have been a core facet of the Orchestra’s offerings since its founding in 1918. In 2019, she established the Jane B. Nord Education Concert Access Fund with a $2.5 million gift, making it possible for students and teachers in Northeast Ohio to attend Cleveland Orchestra Education Concerts for free in perpetuity. In 2021, she created a matching gift of $1 million to help encourage general operating support for the Orchestra. In late 2022, she made an additional extraordinary commitment of $7 million to establish an endowed fund that will support all costs toward producing the Nord Education Concerts, including marketing these concerts to schools, developing and distributing materials in advance of concerts, providing curriculum resources and teacher workshops, subsidizing bus transportation between the schools and Severance Music Center, producing and delivering digital content, and more. Jane’s contributions effectively eliminate all barriers to students attending Cleveland Orchestra Education Concerts, now and forever.

Jane Baker Nord was born in Cleveland in September of 1920 to Elbert Hall Baker and Hildegarde Louise (Krause) Baker. Jane majored in history at Vassar College, graduating in 1942, and received a certificate in art and design in 1945 from the Pratt Institute, where she taught classes for three years. In 1976, she earned a master’s degree in art education from Case Western Reserve University. She married industrialist Eric Thomas Nord on June 19, 1948, in Shaker Heights. The couple had five children — Virginia, Eric, Emily, Carly, and Richard — and enjoyed a 60-year marriage until Eric’s death in 2008.

Jane is a longtime supporter of the arts and education in Northeast Ohio and beyond, both as an individual and with her late husband. She has earned numerous awards and accolades for her service and philanthropic efforts, including the 1996 Oberlin College Distinguished Community Service Award, the Eric Nord Award for Excellence in Leadership from Leadership Lorain County in 2007, and the President’s Award for Visionary Achievement from Case Western Reserve University in 2013.

A true champion of the arts, Jane Nord has been devoted to helping others fall in

Previous Recipients

1996–97 Dorothy Humel Hovorka, trustee

1997–98 David Zauder, trumpet and Orchestra personnel manager

1998–99 Ward Smith, trustee

1999–2000 Christoph von Dohnányi, music director emeritus

2000–01 Gary Hanson, executive director

2001–02 John Mack, oboe

2002–03 Richard J. Bogomolny, trustee

2003–04 Thomas W. Morris, executive director

2004–05 Alex Machaskee, trustee

2005–06 Klaus G. Roy, program editor and annotator

2006–07 Amb. John D. Ong, trustee

2007–08 Gerald Hughes, chorus

2008–09 Louis Lane, assistant conductor

2009–10 Clara Taplin Rankin, trustee

2010–11 Robert Conrad, trustee and president of WCLV

2011–12 Richard Weiner, percussion

2012–13 Milton and Tamar Maltz, trustees

2013–14 Pierre Boulez, conductor

2014–15 James D. Ireland III, trustee

2015–16 Rosemary Klena, assistant to the executive director

2016–17 Robert Vernon, viola

2017–18 Dennis W. LaBarre, trustee

2018–19 Franz Welser-Möst, music director

2019–20 Cleveland Orchestra Chorus

2021–22 Joela Jones, keyboard love with The Cleveland Orchestra, just as she did. Thanks to Jane’s extraordinary generosity, every child in Northeast Ohio now has the opportunity to experience, for free, the joy and power of classical music performed at the highest levels of excellence. In recognition of her transformational philanthropy, her generous service to The Cleveland Orchestra, and her dedication to the arts and the future of classical music, the Musical Arts Association is pleased to honor Jane B. Nord with our highest award for distinguished service.