Renamed Shedd begins capital drive.

Byline: Bob Keefer The Register-Guard

The newly named John G. Shedd Institute for the Arts in Eugene - you may know it better as the Oregon Festival of American Music - made its new name official and announced a $9.85 million capital campaign on Thursday.

More than $1.7 million has been raised so far, Shedd board President Ruby Brockett said.

That money includes $1 million pledged by Jim and Genevra Ralph, who founded OFAM - now the Shedd - in 1991 with money from the estate of the late John G. Shedd, a Chicago businessman and Genevra Ralph's grandfather.

The Shedd fortune also founded the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago.

The capital campaign will allow the Shedd Institute to buy the old First Baptist Church building at High Street and Broadway from the Ralphs.

The old brick church has been the institute's headquarters since the couple bought it for $3.6 million in 2001.

They spent an additional $1.3 million in renovations; the building is now appraised at $4 million, Jim Ralph said.

Eugene philanthropists John Jaqua and his wife, Robin, were named as honorary co-chairs of the capital campaign at a brief ceremony Thursday at the Shedd's Concert Hall.

"This young couple came to town and about single-handedly raised the level of music here," John Jaqua said of the Ralphs and the institute they founded. "We've been impressed."

About $4 million from the new capital campaign is earmarked for buying the building from the Ralphs, who have been leasing it to the institute.

The rest will go to further renovations, for buying equipment, and for creating an endowment.

"Over the past three years we've learned how much we need this building and that it is sustainable only through ownership," Brockett said. "Lease payments are not sustainable; ownership is. The time has come for the community to truly own the Shedd."

Brockett also said, without adding details, that the Shedd will announce receipt of a significant gift to the capital campaign a week from today.

The name change reflects the broader mission of the institute, said Randall Collis, who chairs the Shedd board.

"The name Oregon Festival of American Music no longer captures our diverse activities," he said, pointing out that the Shedd also includes a music school, music summer camps, an Elderhostel program and scores of year-round concerts in addition to the summer music festival with which it all began.

With a budget of $2.36 million this fiscal year, the Shedd has the equivalent of 17 full-time positions on its payroll and employs an additional 26 music teachers part time.

It produced 150 concerts in the past year and has 425 music students in its classes at the American Music Institute.

The Shedd's summer music festival will continue to bear the name Oregon Festival of American Music.

This year's festival, "Cole Porter: Night and Day," kicks off Monday and runs through Aug. 13, with musical theater, concerts, lectures and a film series at the Shedd, the Hult Center and the Cuthbert Amphitheater.