Culture OC Announces Its Next Donor Level
- Paul Hodgins
- Mar 24
- 3 min read
We are proud to honor donors giving $5,000 or more in our new Publishers donor level.
As Culture OC settles into our second year of providing local arts and culture news, we’re receiving broader support from the community. To acknowledge that generosity, we have created a new category, Publishers, for individual or institutional donors who give $5,000 or more. We’re honored to include three supporters at that level.
The Emma and Adam Zhu Foundation supports arts education, culture promotion and community service programs. Its cofounders, Newport Beach investment banker, media producer and arts patron Adam Zhu and his wife Emma, have shown a keen interest in Southern California’s cultural life and provide strong and continuing support for not-for-profit institutions, with a particular focus on the performing arts. Among their beneficiaries are the Colburn School, the Newport Beach Film Festival, China Opera Society, Beijing Music Festival and the Ziering-Conlon Initiative for Recovered Voices. The Zhus have offered guidance and financial support to Culture OC since its founding.
Emma Qin Zhu recently accepted an invitation to join Culture OC’s Advisory Board. A native of Beijing, Emma received her B.A. and MBA from Beihang University in China. She is the founder and chairwoman of Beijing Letz Arts and Culture Development Limited, which produces feature films, documentaries and classical music performances. She was born into a musical family – her father is a celebrated opera singer in China – and she trained as a soprano. Emma and Adam have three children who are all current students (piano and violin) of Colburn’s Community School of Performing Arts.
“Culture OC is the home for arts and music lovers in Southern California, which I believe could play a crucial role in building and strengthening our community,” Emma says. “History has proven that in times of great division, the arts and music have the power to bring people together by creating a shared experience, and fostering a sense of community and connection with people of different races, ethnicities, ages, beliefs and identities. When many of us feel that we’re living through an extraordinarily divided time, Culture OC is a terrific platform to weave our communities and individuals together with the restorative nature of arts and music. Adam and I are very happy to provide support.”
Mary A. Lyons is a passionate advocate of arts education and public-private partnerships in the arts. Lyons and her husband Phillip are longtime supporters of local arts organizations, with particular emphasis on not-for-profit music.
A singer for more than four decades and a founding board member and former board chair of Arts Orange County, Lyons also served in crucial administrative and board positions with the Pacific Chorale. The Grammy-winning chorale’s director chair, currently held by Robert Istad, has been endowed by Lyons and her husband. To honor her long commitment, the Pacific Chorale named her chairman emeritus.
Lyons has supported Culture OC since its beginnings as part of Voice of OC, and she is a strong advocate of classical music journalism. Her multi-year support has been instrumental in Culture OC’s growth.
The Rubin Institute for Music Criticism is a program in partnership with the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation and administered by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. In addition to its biennial week at the SFCM, when leading journalists and aspiring critics come together to explore the art of music criticism, the Rubin Institute funds music coverage at certain local and national publications. It was founded in 2011 by Stephen Rubin, who was a journalist at Vanity Fair and The New York Times and the founder of a news syndicate, Writers Bloc, before he transitioned to a celebrated career in publishing in the 1980s. The Rubin Institute has supported classical music coverage at Culture OC since its founding.
If you are interested in joining these donors by supporting arts and culture journalism at Culture OC at any level, we hope you will consider donating today.
