Class
| • | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | [X] |
| | 1 | Name: | Mr. Mark Morris | | | Institution: | Mark Morris Dance Group | | | Year Elected: | 2008 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 501. Creative Artists | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1956 | | | | | | |
Mark Morris was born on August 29, 1956, in Seattle, Washington, where he studied as a young man with Verla Flowers and Perry Brunson. In the early years of his career, he performed with Lar Lubovitch, Hannah Kahn, Laura Dean, Eliot Feld, and the Koleda Balkan Dance Ensemble. He formed the Mark Morris Dance Group in 1980, and has since created more than 120 works for the company. From 1988-1991, he was Director of Dance at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, the national opera house of Belgium. Among the works created during his tenure were three evening-length dances: The Hard Nut; L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato; and Dido and Aeneas. In 1990, he founded the White Oak Dance Project with Mikhail Baryshnikov. Morris is also much in demand as a ballet choreographer. He has created six works for the San Francisco Ballet since 1994 and received commissions from American Ballet Theatre, and the Boston Ballet, among others. His work is also in the repertory of the Pacific Northwest Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, New Zealand Ballet, Houston Ballet, English National Ballet, and The Royal Ballet. Morris is noted for his musicality and has been described as "undeviating in his devotion to music." He has worked extensively in opera, directing and choreographing productions for The Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, English National Opera, and The Royal Opera, Covent Garden. Morris was named a Fellow of the MacArthur Foundation in 1991. He has received honorary doctorates from The Boston Conservatory of Music, The Juilliard School, Long Island University, Pratt Institute, Bowdoin College, Bard College, Bates College, and George Mason University. In 2006, Morris received the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Mayor's Award for Arts & Culture and a WQXR Gramophone Special Recognition Award. He is the subject of a biography by Joan Acocella (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) and Marlowe & Company published a volume of photographs and critical essays entitled Mark Morris' L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato: A Celebration. Morris is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2007 he received the Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Festival lifetime achievement award. Mark Morris was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2008. | |
| 2 | Name: | Sir Mark Thompson | | | Institution: | Ancestry | | | Year Elected: | 2017 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 502. Physicians, Theologians, Lawyers, Jurists, Architects, and Members of Other Professions | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1957 | | | | | | |
Sir Mark Thompson became Chairman and CEO of CNN on October 9, 2023. Mark is also the Chairman of Ancestry; Deputy Chair of the Royal Shakespeare Company and Co-Chair of the International Fund for Public Interest Media, a new global fund to support journalists around the world. Mark stepped down as President and CEO of The New York Times Company in the summer of 2020 after an eight-year tenure (2012-20) during which he led the transformation of the 170-year-old news brand into a digital powerhouse. Digital subscribers jumped to nearly 6 million, up from half a million when he joined. NYTCo stock quintupled in value during his period as CEO. Sir Mark’s appointment at The New York Times Company followed an eight-year term (2004-12) as Director General (Editor-in-Chief and Chief Executive) of the BBC. As well as guiding the BBC’s coverage of the global financial crisis and the 2012 London Olympic Games, he is credited with major advances in the BBC’s digital offering and digital audience reach, including the successful launch of the BBC’s iPlayer, one of the world’s first streaming services from a major broadcaster (2007). He joined the BBC from Channel 4 where he was Chief Executive from 2002 to 2004. Before Channel 4 he held a series of senior posts at the BBC including Editor of The Nine O’clock News and Panorama, Controller of BBC Two and Director of Television. His book, “Enough Said: What’s Gone Wrong with the Language of Politics?” was published in the UK and US in September 2016. He was born in London in 1957 and was educated at Stonyhurst College and Merton College Oxford. He is an honorary fellow of Merton College Oxford and a member of the American Philosophical Society. He is married and has three children. His main home is in New York City. He was knighted for services to Media in the King’s Birthday Honours June 2023. | |
| 3 | Name: | Dr. Mark S. Wrighton | | | Institution: | Washington University in St. Louis | | | Year Elected: | 2001 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1949 | | | | | | |
Before being named chancellor of Washington University in 1995, Mark Wrighton served for five years as provost of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was an assistant professor at M.I.T. at the age of 23 and, fifteen years later, became chairman of the Department of Chemistry. Dr. Wrighton's gifts as a teacher, administrator and scientist are widely recognized. For his achievements has received the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, the Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Grant, and the American Chemist Society Award in Pure Chemistry, among other honors. From 1983-88 he was a MacArthur Fellow, and he is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences; the American Chemical Society; and the Electrochemical Society. In 2018 he was named a leader of United Way community campaigns. Mark Wrighton was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2001. | |
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