(FORTUNE Magazine) – Sanford ''Sandy'' Weill's own musical accomplishments never got much beyond some childhood piano lessons and high school drum beating. But now he's got a gig in Carnegie Hall. Weill, 58, the CEO of Primerica, the financial services company, has just become chairman of the hall's board of trustees. How did he get to Carnegie Hall? Certainly not by practice, practice, practice. Having sold his Shearson brokerage to American Express in 1981, Weill found himself one evening sitting with his wife in a box at Carnegie Hall. ''You get a special feeling when you touch the walls,'' he says. But the feeling was damp -- water was leaking into the box from the bathroom above. So Weill agreed to head a $60 million drive to restore a structure incrusted as much with buckling plaster as with tradition. And to set a good example for potential contributors, he gave $2.5 million to the building fund -- a tad more than Andrew Carnegie himself donated. This year Carnegie Hall turned 100, and its board turned to Weill. Says he: ''I had a big mouth, and they asked me if I wanted to be chairman.''