What started out as a $1 million endowment has now been turned into $15 million dollars in grants. The Abbot Academy Fund (AAF) provides students, faculty, and staff with funding for projects, programs, and activities that exemplify Abbot Academy’s values of boldness, innovation, and caring, and that may not be available through the regular curriculum. AAF was established after the merger of Abbot Academy and Phillips Academy to preserve Abbot’s unique values within the newly unified school.
Since the program began 52 years ago, AAF has awarded over 1,600 grants, ranging from $100 to $100,000 each, many of which have had a lasting impact on the music and arts programs at Andover.
According to Christina Landolt, Community Liaison to the AAF and Instructor in Music, major arts-related initiatives include the Falls Music Center and Cristina Rubio Dance Suite, named after Cristina Rubio, current president of the AAF and the daughter of beloved dance instructor at Abbot Cristina Rubio. Both are now lively community and class spaces on campus. AAF has also provided funding for cameras, dance equipment, and music-composing technology.
In the 2024-2025 school year, there were 23 grants in total, and 4 of them were for the Music and Arts department. One of these grants, proposed by Kareem Lewis, involved a two-week dance residency. The grant provided funding for eight professional dancers and a rehearsal director to come to campus to work with Andover’s dance students over two weeks to choreograph and rehearse, culminating in a final performance open to the Andover community.
“As a [Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT), based in Utah] alumnus, I designed the residency to bring professional dance artists into direct engagement with our students through master classes, dance demonstrations, choreography sessions, and live performance. The residency concluded with two performances at Phillips Academy titled Excursion, featuring both RDT dancers and Phillips Academy students. The program included works by a diverse group of important choreographers, including Michio Ito, Donald McKayle, Katarzyna Skarpetowska, Yusha-Marie Sorzano, Noa Zuk, and Ohad Fishof,” wrote Lewis in an email to The Phillipian.
In 2023, Abbey Siegfried, Chair and Instructor in Music, applied for a grant called “New Music for a New Era: Celebrating Coeducation & Falls Hall.” The fund cycled for three years, the maximum length of a project. It allowed for the commissioning of new works and brought three composers to campus for residencies.
“In Winter 2026, the chamber orchestra premiered a work by Maita Eyzaguirre ’14, Rumbo sureño, inspired by dance traditions of Colombia’s Caribbean coast. In Winter 2025, the chamber orchestra premiered An American Reflection by Quinn Mason, which we also took on tour to London. Some chamber groups also learned pieces by Mr. Mason, and we had a Q&A dinner in the Mural Room with almost 50 students in attendance, talking about a life in the arts, composition, music, and identity. In Spring 2024, alongside the Abbot at Andover celebrations of Co-Education, the chamber orchestra premiered Awaken by Gwyneth Walker [’64],” wrote Siegfried in an email to The Phillipian.
