Beautiful Voices! An Endowment for Student Opera Singers at the A. J. Fletcher Opera Institute in Honor of Thomas S. Kenan, III

Scholarship benefitting A. J. Fletcher Opera Institute students who demonstrate outstanding talent and potential.

Created by Mary D.B.T Semans and Wyndham Robertson to honor Thomas S. Kenan, III. Thomas S. Kenan III has been actively engaged in the life of UNCSA since the 1960s. A founder of UNCSA, he served on the UNCSA Board of Trustees from 1969-85 and is now an honorary trustee. He was on the UNCSA Foundation board from 1974-90, and has been on the UNCSA Board of Visitors since its inception in 1984. He is a charter member of the School’s Giannini Society as well as Founders Society. He received an honorary doctorate from UNCSA in 2002. Kenan also serves on the Semans Art Fund. board that has allocated grants to hundreds of UNCSA students. Also at UNCSA, he established the Thomas S. Kenan Endowed Professorship in Organ, donated the Sarah Graham Kenan Memorial Organ (located in Crawford Hall), and set up the Sarah Graham Kenan Organ Fund to underwrite scholarships, concert series and organ maintenance. In addition, he established the Sarah Graham Kenan Scholarship for Excellence – the most prestigious scholarship awarded at UNCSA. The Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts, a privately funded program of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, is named for him. Thomas S. Kenan III was born in Durham and received his B.A. in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a member of a family with a long and enduring tradition of helping others.