Grace Moore had told friends that when she retired she intended to present her farewell concert at the University of Tennessee and to donate the proceeds to a scholarship fund in the UT Music Department. The 1947 plane crash, near Copenhagen in which she died, prevented this from happening; but in the spring of 1949, UT’s University Concerts presented Dorothy Kirsten, a protégé of Moore’s and the leading soprano of the Metropolitan Opera Company, in a benefit recital.
Kirsten donated her services to the memory of Grace Moore, and Moore’s husband (Valentine Parera) and numerous friends also provided contributions to establish the Grace Moore Scholarship Fund, which provides a four-year scholarship in voice and lessons with a UT voice professor. The first recipient of the scholarship was Mary Boswell of Gallatin.
In 1953 the world premiere of the Grace Moore movie So This is Love was held at the Tennessee Theatre in Knoxville as a benefit for the fund, complete with stars of the movie (Kathryn Grayson, Joan Weldon, Merv Griffith, and Walter Abel) in attendance. To heighten interest in the benefit concert, episodes from the life of Grace Moore were dramatized as a “Radio Sketchbook” presentation on WKGN radio by members of the UT radio class four days before the performance, and cities across the state were invited to declare the day of the performance as Grace Moore Day.