SAB Announces Major Gift from Board Chair Zita Ezpeleta

$3 Million Donation by Board Chair Zita Ezpeleta Brings Two-Year Gift Total to $4 Million in Support of School Initiatives
The School of American Ballet is delighted to announce the receipt of a $2 million gift from Board Chair Zita Ezpeleta and her husband Kewsong Lee to create an endowment for the School’s top artistic leadership position. The gift will establish the Zita Ezpeleta Artistic Director and Chair of Faculty, currently held by Jonathan Stafford. In addition, Ms. Ezpeleta and Mr. Lee have made a separate $1 million commitment earmarked for capital improvements at the School’s Lincoln Center headquarters.
This meaningful gift comes just one year after a $1 million donation from Ms. Ezpeleta and Mr. Lee created SAB’s Lee and Ezpeleta Advancement Program (LEAP) for Choreography fund—facilitating a new mentorship role of Student Choreography Advisor (now held by renowned alumnus Justin Peck) and adding instruction in choreography composition to SAB’s syllabus for intermediate and advanced students. The couple’s longtime support of SAB also includes a $1 million 2015 gift to create and endow a professional placement manager position, the first of its kind among peer institutions.
Jonathan Stafford is just the third artistic leader in the School of American Ballet’s ninety-year history. Mr. Stafford trained at SAB as a teen and was invited to join New York City Ballet in 1998. He rose to the rank of Principal in 2007 and joined SAB’s full-time faculty the same year. One year later he was appointed SAB’s first-ever Professional Placement Manager. In 2019, Mr. Stafford was named Artistic Director of both New York City Ballet and the School of American Ballet, and in 2023 he also added the role of Chair of Faculty to his SAB duties. In response to news of this contribution, Stafford stated:
“I am honored and delighted to be the first Zita Ezpeleta Artistic Director and Chair of Faculty and enormously grateful to Zita and Kewsong for this extraordinary gift. Zita has been a wonderful supporter and champion throughout my artistic leadership journey at SAB, so it seems especially fitting that her commitment and dedication to SAB will be recognized in conjunction with my current position well into the future.”
Executive Director Carrie W. Hinrichs added, “Zita’s leadership of the Board, and her support of SAB over the past fourteen years, has been incomparably impactful. These new gifts will be critical to strengthening our endowment, upgrading our facilities and expanding SAB programs to better prepare our talented students for their future careers. We are so pleased to recognize Zita and Kewsong’s unwavering commitment to SAB’s success with the renaming of the School’s most important artistic title.”
A life-long supporter of the arts, Zita J. Ezpeleta has served on SAB’s Board of Directors since 2011. Ms. Ezpeleta holds a JD degree from Harvard Law School and a BA in Literature from Harvard College.