Don Stone, a Dallas civic leader and strong supporter of the arts, died on Sunday. He was 96.
Angela Stone, Don’s youngest child, said her father was one of a kind, a rare mix of sweet and tough.
“He was just the most wonderful man I ever knew, just generous to a fault, smart, charming. He influenced so many people,” she said.
Stone gave widely across North Texas, including $500,000 to endow college scholarships for musically gifted Dallas ISD students. Stone also held leadership positions at several North Texas arts organizations, including the Dallas Public Library, Voices of Change, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Fine Arts Chamber Players, Orchestra of New Spain, the Greater Dallas Youth Orchestra, Shakespeare Dallas and Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.
“He just believed that all of our lives would be so much poorer without music, art and theater. He said in our country we have the freedom to support whatever we want and that we needed to support the arts so that they would continue to exist,” Stone said.
Stone, a businessman who lived in Turtle Creek, worked for Sanger Harris, which later became Macy’s. He was a 2018 TACA Silver Cup Award honoree for his arts and culture advocacy in North Texas.
Maura Sheffler, president and executive director of The Arts Community Alliance (TACA), said in a statement that Stone’s legacy will continue to inspire the local arts community.
“We are deeply saddened by the passing of Don Stone, a devoted champion of the arts whose leadership and generosity,” she wrote.
Stone’s wife of over 72 years, Norma, died in June. She was the one who first got her husband involved in the arts, according to their daughter Angela.
Michelle Miller Burns, the DSO’s president and CEO, said the Stones had a profound impact on the DSO.
“It is with such a heavy heart that I received news of Don Stone's passing earlier this week. Don was a devoted patron, a donor and a board member of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, and his leadership and generosity really have helped shape the Dallas symphony across five decades,” she said.
In 1980, Stone served as DSO’s chairman of the Board of Governors and helped launch efforts to raise $80 million for Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center and secure architect I.M. Pei.
In 1997, the Stones launched the Norma and Don Stone New Music Fund and committed $1 million to continuously support new works. Some of the works supported through the fund include this year’s world premiere of Angélica Negrón’s requiem For Everything You Keep Losing. The fund also supported a Grammy award-winning violin concerto by Aaron Jay Kernis co-commissioned with the Seattle Symphony, Toronto Symphony and Melbourne Symphony.
“I think it is rare for a couple who so firmly believes in the future of classical music and creating opportunities for new musical voices to be heard to really put support behind that in a meaningful way to fuel that process, to ensure that it can come to fruition,” Burns said.
She said the DSO will continue the Stones’ legacy by commissioning new works through the Norma and Don Stone New Music Fund.
Stone is survived by his children Michael, Lisa and Angela, six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. The family will have a private funeral.
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