Winter Wonderful Honorees

Sasha and Edward Bass

Music and the visual arts are among the many personal and philanthropic passions of Sasha and Edward P. Bass, who will be honored with the Frost Legacy Award at the Frost School of Music’s 2023 Winter Wonderful holiday gala in Miami, Florida, on December 3, 2023.

The Frost Legacy Award is presented annually by the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami to honor creative and civic leaders for their profound impact on the arts community.

Hailing from Fort Worth, Texas, the dynamic couple are the owners of the Fine Line Group, which includes significant real estate holdings in Fort Worth and a venture fund focused on investing in enterprises with a meaningful connection to Fort Worth.

Ed Bass is a businessman, financier, philanthropist, and environmentalist who for decades has served on boards ranging from the World Wildlife Fund and New York Botanical Garden to his alma mater, Yale University, and the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo.  In the 1980s, he founded the iconic jazz club Caravan of Dreams that helped launch and support the careers of countless musicians.

Sasha Bass is a businesswoman, art collector, philanthropist, and community leader who serves on the board of trustees for Texas Christian University and the Brooklyn Museum, among others.  She is a tireless advocate for the underserved and marginalized.  Over the past few years alone she began numerous grass-roots initiatives to showcase the work of local visual artists, including the Fort Worth Art Fair and Sounds of Resilience, a grant program for local musicians impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Sasha and Ed Bass are the owners of Sundance Square in Fort Worth, an award-winning mixed-use development featuring local artisans and restaurants anchored by a privately developed downtown plaza. As part of their commitment to the arts in Fort Worth, they have developed Bass Performance Hall, a 2,000 seat concert hall, and Dickies Arena, a 14,000 seat venue that hosts live entertainment and sporting events, as well as the Fort Worth Stock Show Rodeo.

The couple’s shared love of music introduced them to Dean Shelly Berg, and they recently donated a major gift in the dean’s honor for the new Knight Center for Music Innovation at the Frost School of Music.  They are also the underwriting sponsors of a summer collegiate jazz program in Aspen, Colorado named The JAS Academy in Collaboration with the Frost School of Music and Jazz Aspen Snowmass (JAS).

“Sasha and Ed’s friendship over the years, and their efforts to advance the careers of a new generation of artistic leaders, is incredibly inspiring to me,” says Berg. “I’m so grateful for their confidence in the Frost School, and their deep commitment to providing life-changing experiences to help develop emerging music professionals who will become our ground-breaking leaders of tomorrow.”