Subdivision
| • | 501. Creative Artists | [X] |
| | 21 | Name: | Mr. Philip Glass | | | Year Elected: | 2009 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 501. Creative Artists | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1937 | | | | | | |
Philip Glass’s musical life began early; at eight he studied the flute at the Peabody Conservatory and by twelve he had begun composing. After receiving an M.A. in composition from Juilliard in 1961, he studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and in India with the sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar. Glass’s composition matured in the early seventies, largely through works written for his own Philip Glass Ensemble. In 1974, with a performance of the complete Music in Twelve Parts at the New York Town Hall, he had his first performance in a traditional concert hall. Two years later Einstein on the Beach premiered at the Metropolitan Opera, bringing Glass accolades from the larger music world. This master work combines disparate media moments in unconventional visual juxtaposition with textless vocal exercises and numerals varying in pitch and rhythm. The operas Satyagraha (1980) and Akhnaten (1984) followed - the former portraying the early years of Mahatma Gandhi and utilizing a dronelike repetition of symmetrical sequences of chords to achieve haunting and hypnotic powers. In recent years Glass has focused increasingly on composition for theater, film and dance. His film scores have received three Academy Award nominations – for Kundun (1997), The Hours (2002) and Notes on a Scandal (2006) - and his collaborations with the director Godfrey Reggio (Koyaanisqatsi, et al) are audiovisual tone poems of uncommon elegance and visceral power. All told, over the last 25 years, Glass has composed 22 operas, eight symphonies, 38 film soundtracks, numerous string quartets and a growing body of work for solo piano and organ. In addition to his Academy Award nominations, Glass won a Golden Globe Award in 1999, the Asquith Award for Film Music in 2002, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2010. He won a New York City Mayor's Award for Arts and Culture in 2013. He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 1994. | |
| 22 | Name: | Ms. Louise Gluck | | | Institution: | Yale University | | | Year Elected: | 2014 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 501. Creative Artists | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1943 | | | Death Date: | October 13, 2023 | | | | | | |
Louise Gluck is the author of Firstborn, 1968; Proofs and Theories (Collected Essays), 1994; The First Four Books, 1995; Meadowlands, 1996; Vita Nova, 1999; The Seven Ages, 2001; October, 2003; Averno, 2006; A Village Life, 2009; Poems, 1962-2012, 2012. Each of her books departs from the theme of its predecessors like a novel with lacunae opening onto the unspeakable. Myths of antiquity - the characters of Persphone, Achilles, Eurydice, Iphigenia, appear throughout the series, often used as a vehicle for psychological analysis. Many of her books contain dark poems of family relationships. The last volume, A Village Life, reinforces the themes that delineate the difficulties of interpersonal relationships. To read her books is to understanding the governing paradox of a life lived in the body and of the work wrested from it, the one fated to die and the other to endure.
She is the recipient of a National Book Critics Circle Award, 1985; Guggenheim Fellowship, 1975, 1987; Pulitzer Prize, 1993; the PEN Martha Albrand Award, 1994, the Gold Medal for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, 2015; and the National Humanities Medal, 2016. She served as Poet Laureate of the United States in 2003.
Louise Gluck was Senior lecturer in English, 1984-98, and Preston S. Parish ‘41 Third Century Lecturer in English, 1998-2004, at Williams College, and was Regents Professor, 1985-87, at the University of California, Los Angeles. Since 2004 she has been the Rosenkranz Writer in Residence and Adjunct Professor of English at Yale University.
Louise Gluck won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2020. She was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2014. | |
| 23 | Name: | Ms. Nadine Gordimer | | | Year Elected: | 2008 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 501. Creative Artists | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1923 | | | Death Date: | July 13, 2014 | | | | | | |
Author of fourteen novels and eighteen short story collections, Nadine Gordimer has won prodigious acclaim and respect as a writer and activist, both in her native South Africa and abroad. Her works deal with the moral and psychological issues endemic to her racially divided home country, the political tensions that inevitably result, and the ability of citizens to cope with, and overcome, these divisions. In her stories of ordinary South Africans, Gordimer reveals the layers of moral ambiguity and choice that underlie and shape daily life. From her active opposition to South Africa's apartheid government (her books were banned as a result) to her recent explorations of the AIDS crisis and the complexities of post-apartheid society, Gordimer has used her art as a mirror on, and vehicle for change within, South Africa. For these achievements she was recognized with the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature, which noted that Gordimer "through her magnificent epic writing has been of very great benefit to humanity". Her most recent book is No Time Like the Present", published in 2012. Nadine Gordimer was elected an international member of the American Philosophical Society in 2008. | |
| 24 | Name: | Ms. Denyce Graves | | | Institution: | Denyce Graves Foundation; Peabody Institute, Johns Hopkins University | | | Year Elected: | 2021 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 501. Creative Artists | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1964 | | | | | | |
Recognized worldwide as one of today's most exciting vocal stars, mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves continues to gather unparalleled popular and critical acclaim in performances on four continents. USA Today identifies her as "an operatic superstar of the 21st Century," and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution exclaims, "if the human voice has the power to move you, you will be touched by Denyce Graves."
Her career has taken her to the world's great opera houses and concert halls. The combination of her expressive, rich vocalism, elegant stage presence and exciting theatrical abilities allows her to pursue a wide breadth of operatic portrayals and to delight audiences in concert and recital appearances. Denyce Graves has become particularly well-known to operatic audiences for her portrayals of the title roles in Carmen and Samson et Dalila. These signature roles have brought Ms. Graves to the Metropolitan Opera, Vienna Staatsoper, Royal Opera - Covent Garden, San Francisco Opera, Opéra National de Paris, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Washington Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, Arena di Verona, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Opernhaus Zürich, Teatro Real in Madrid, Houston Grand Opera, Dallas Opera, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Los Angeles Opera and the Festival Maggio Musi- cale in Florence.
Ms. Graves’s 2012-2013 season includes two world premieres; she creates the roles of Mrs. Miller in Minnesota Opera’s New Works Initiative commission of Doubt, composed by Douglas J. Cuomo and directed by Kevin Newbury, and of Emelda in Cham- pion by Terence Blanchard at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis. The season also marks two role debuts for Ms. Graves as Herodias in Strauss’ Salome at Palm Beach Opera, and Katisha in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City. Ms. Graves makes numerous concert and recital performances including at Opera Carolina, Arizona Musicfest, National Philhar- monic, San Diego Symphony and several prestigious universities throughout the nation. As Ms. Graves’s dedication to teaching the singers of the next generation continues to be an important part of her career, she joins the voice faculty of the Peabody Con- servatory of Music in Baltimore.
Denyce Graves made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in the 1995–1996 season in the title role of Carmen. She returned the following season to lead the new Franco Zeffirelli production of this work, conducted by James Levine, and she sang the opening night performance of the Metropolitan Opera's 1997–1998 season as Carmen opposite Plácido Domingo. She was seen again that season as Bizet's gypsy on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera for Domingo's 30th Anniversary Gala, and she made her debut in Japan as Carmen, opposite the Don José of Roberto Alagna. Ms. Graves appeared in a new production of Samson et Dalila opposite Plácido Domingo at the Metropolitan Opera, and she performed Act III of this work opposite Mr. Domingo to open the Met’s season in 2005. She was partnered again with Mr. Domingo in the 1999 season-opening performances of this work for Los Angeles Opera. She was seen as Saint-Saëns’ seductress with Royal Opera – Covent Garden and Washington Opera, both opposite José Cura, the latter under the baton of Maestro Domingo, as well as with Houston Grand Opera. Her debut in this sig- nature role came in 1992 with the Chicago Symphony at the Ravinia Festival under the direction of James Levine and opposite Mr. Domingo and Sherrill Milnes, and she made a return engagement to the Festival in this same role in 1997.
Ms. Graves appears continually in a broad range of repertoire with leading theaters in North America, Europe and Asia. Highlights have included a Robert Lepage production of The Rake’s Progress at San Francisco Opera, the title role in Richard Danielpour’s Margaret Garner in the world premiere performances at Michigan Opera Theatre with further performances at Cincinnati Opera, Opera Carolina and the Opera Company of Philadelphia, the role of Charlotte in Werther for Michigan Opera Theatre opposite the Werther of Andrea Bocelli in his first staged operatic performances and Judith in a William Friedkin production of Bartok’s Blue- beard’s Castle in her return to Los Angeles Opera: she also has sung Judith at the Washington National Opera and for the Dallas Opera. Highlights of the mezzo-soprano’s other recent appearances include Azucena in Il trovatore, Nicklausse in Les contes d’Hoffmann and Dulcinée in Massenet's Don Quichotte with Washington Opera; Giovanna Seymour in a new production of Anna Bolena for Dallas Opera; the title role in La Périchole with the Opera Company of Philadelphia; a rare double-bill of El amor brujo and La vida breve specifically mounted for her by Dallas Opera; Federica in the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of Luisa Miller, led by James Levine; and Amneris in Aida with Cincinnati Opera. Ms. Graves’s debut with the Théâtre Musical de Paris – Chatelet was as Baba the Turk in a Peter Sellars/Esa-Pekka Salonen production of The Rake's Progress, and she returned to Covent Garden as Cuniza in Verdi's Oberto after her debut performances as Carmen. Her debut at Teatro alla Scala was as the High Priestess in La vestale led by Riccardo Muti, and she soon returned as Giulietta in a new production of Les contes d'Hoff- mann and as Mère Marie in the Robert Carsen production of Dialogues des Carmélites. She appeared at Teatro Bellini in Catania in the title role of La favorita, and audi- ences in Genoa saw her first performances of Charlotte soon after her debut there as Carmen. Her debut in Austria came as Carmen with the Vienna Staatsoper, and she has also been seen in this role with Grand Théâtre de Genève, Genoa’s Teatro Carlo Felice, the Bregenz Festival and festivals in Macerata, Italy and San Sebastian, Spain. Ms. Graves gave her first performances of Adalgisa in Norma for Opernhaus Zürich.
Denyce Graves has worked with leading symphony orchestras and conductors throughout the world in a wide range of repertoire. She has performed with Riccardo Chailly, Myung-Whun Chung, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, James Levine, Zubin Mehta, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Riccardo Muti and Mstislav Rostropovich. Ms. Graves has appeared with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo and National Symphony Orchestra among a host of others.
One of the music world's most sought-after recitalists, Ms. Graves combines her expressive vocalism and exceptional gifts for communication with her dynamic stage presence, enriching audiences around the world. Her programs include classical repertoire of German lieder, French mélodie and English art song, as well as the popular music of Broadway musicals, crossover and jazz together with American spirituals. For her New York recital debut, The New York Times wrote, "[h]er voice is dusky and earthy. She is a strikingly attractive stage presence and a communicative artist who had the audience with her through four encores."
In 2001, Ms. Graves gave a series of appearances in response to the tragic events in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. Ms. Graves was invited by President Bush to participate in the National Prayer Service in Washington's National Cathedral in which she sang “America, the Beauti- ful” and “The Lord’s Prayer.” This event was televised worldwide and was followed by Ms. Graves’ appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show in a live musical program of “Healing through Gospel Music.” Ms. Graves has since participated in numerous other benefit concerts, and RCA Records released a recording of patriotic songs by Denyce Graves, the proceeds of which benefit various groups who have been affected by the events of September 11. Ms. Graves recently continued her patriotic activi- ties when she sang for President and Mrs. Bush, among other dignitaries, at “An American Celebration at Ford’s Theatre” to benefit U.S. soldiers in Iraq. This concert was taped for television and aired on the ABC network on July 4, 2005. In 2003, Denyce Graves was appointed as a Cultural Ambassador for the United States, and she now travels around the world under the auspices of the State Department appearing in good-will missions of musical performances, lectures, and seminars. Her first trips in 2003 brought her to Poland, Romania and Venezuela.
Ms. Graves appears regularly on radio and television as a musical performer, celebrity guest, and as the subject of documentaries and other special programming. In 1997 PBS Productions released a video and audio recording titled, Denyce Graves: A Cathedral Christmas, featuring Ms. Graves in a program of Christmas music from Washington's National Cathedral. This celebration of music including chorus and orchestra is shown each year on PBS during the Christmas season. She was seen on the Emmy-award winning BBC special “The Royal Opera House,” highlighting Ms. Graves’s debut performances there, and in a program of crossover repertoire with the Boston Pops, which was taped for national television broadcast. In December 1999 Ms. Graves participated in a concert given at the Nobel Peace Prize Awards in Oslo, Norway, which was televised throughout Europe. As the only classical music artist to be invited for this event, she performed selections from her RCA Red Seal release alongside performances by Sting, Paul Simon, Tina Turner and others. She has been a frequent guest on television shows including Sesame Street, The Charlie Rose Show and Larry King Live. In 1996, she was the subject of an Emmy-award winning profile on CBS's 60 Minutes.
In 1999, Denyce Graves began a relationship with BMG Classics/RCA Red Seal. That same year Voce di Donna, a solo recording of opera arias, was released on RCA Red Seal. The Lost Days, a recording with jazz musicians of Latin songs in the Spanish and Portuguese languages, was released in January 2003. In June 2003, Church was released – this recording, developed by Denyce Graves, brings together African-American divas from various forms of music, all of whom were first exposed to music through their upbringing in church. Participants recorded music of their choice and include Dr. Maya Angelou, Dionne Warwick, En Vogue, Patti LaBelle and others. Other recordings of Ms. Graves include NPR Classics’ release of a recording of spirituals, Angels Watching Over Me, featuring the mezzo-soprano in performance with her fre- quent partner, Warren Jones and an album of French arias, Héroïnes de l'Opéra romantique Français, with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo under Marc Soustrot. Her full opera recordings include Gran Vestale in La vestale, recorded live from La Scala with Riccardo Muti for Sony Classical; Queen Gertrude in Thomas’s Hamlet for EMI Classics; Maddalena in Rigoletto with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra under James Levine; and Emilia in Otello with Plácido Domingo and the Opéra de Paris, Bastille Orchestra under Myung-Whun Chung, both for Deutsche Grammophon.
Denyce Graves is a native of Washington, D.C., where she attended the Duke Ellington School for the Performing Arts. She continued her education at Oberlin Col- lege Conservatory of Music and the New England Conservatory. In 1998, Ms. Graves received an honorary doctorate from Oberlin College Conservatory of Music. She was named one of the "50 Leaders of Tomorrow" by Ebony magazine and was one of Glamour magazine's 1997 "Women of the Year." In 1999, WQXR Radio in New York named her as one of classical music's "Standard Bearers for the 21st Century." Denyce Graves has been invited on several occasions to perform in recital at the White House, and she provides many benefit performances for various causes special to her throughout each season.
Denyce Graves has been the recipient of many awards, including the Grand Prix du Concours International de Chant de Paris, the Eleanor Steber Music Award in the Opera Columbus Vocal Competition and a Jacobson Study Grant from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation. In 1991, she received the Grand Prix Lyrique, awarded once every three years by the Association des amis de l’opéra de Monte-Carlo, and the Marian Anderson Award, presented to her by Miss Anderson. In addition, Ms. Graves has received honorary doctorates from Oberlin College, College of Saint Mary and Centre College. | |
| 25 | Name: | Ms. Beverly Sills Greenough | | | Institution: | Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts & Metropolitan Opera & New York City Opera Company & Lincoln Center Theatre | | | Year Elected: | 1979 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 501. Creative Artists | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1929 | | | Death Date: | July 2, 2007 | | | | |
| 26 | Name: | Mr. A. R. Gurney | | | Year Elected: | 2009 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 501. Creative Artists | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1930 | | | Death Date: | June 13, 2017 | | | | | | |
A.R. Gurney was a prolific playwright who dissected the fading folkways of the Northeast's traditional white Anglo-Saxon Protestant society, of which he himself was a member. Among his plays are Scenes from American Life; The Dining Room; The Cocktail Hour; Love Letters; Slyvia; Later Life; Far East; Ancestral Voices; Big Bill; Mrs. Farnsworth; Indian Blood; Buffalo Gal; The Grand Manner; Black Tie; Heresy, and Family Furniture. He had written three published novels, several television scripts, and the libretto for Michael Torke's Strawberry Fields, commissioned and produced by the New York City Opera. Gurney was a Professor of Literature at M.I.T. before devoting himself full time to the theatre. He is a member of the Theatre Hall of Fame and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and he has honorary degrees from Williams College and Buffalo State University. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2009. A. R. Gurney died June 13, 2017, at the age of 86, in Manhattan. | |
| 27 | Name: | Ms. Joy Harjo | | | Year Elected: | 2021 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 501. Creative Artists | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1951 | | | | | | |
Joy Harjo is a poet, musician, playwright, and author. She served as the 23rd United States Poet Laureate and has since been reappointed twice. She has been a Chancellor of the American Academy of Poets since 2019, is Board Chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, and directs For Girls Becoming–an arts mentorship program for young Mvskoke women. She earned her M.F.A. in creative writing from the prestigious Iowa Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1978.
Harjo (Mvskoke) was the first Native American Poet Laureate. About Harjo, American Academy of Poets Chancellor Alicia Ostiker has written, "… Harjo has worked to expand our American language, culture, and soul…Harjo is rooted simultaneously in the natural world, in earth—especially the landscape of the American southwest—and in the spirit world. Aided by these redemptive forces of nature and spirit, incorporating native traditions of prayer and myth into a powerfully contemporary idiom, her visionary justice-seeking art transforms personal and collective bitterness to beauty, fragmentation to wholeness, and trauma to healing." Also a performer, Harjo plays saxophone and flutes with the Arrow Dynamics Band and solo, and previously with the band Poetic Justice. She has appeared on HBO's Def Poetry Jam, in venues across the U.S. and internationally, and has released seven award-winning albums.
Harjo's bibliography is extensive. Books of poetry include: The Last Song (1975), What Moon Drove Me to This? (1979), She Had Some Horses (1983), Secrets from the Center of the World (1989), In Mad Love and War (1990), The Woman Who Fell From the Sky (1994), A Map to the Next World: Poems (2000), How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems (2002), Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings (2015), and the highly acclaimed An American Sunrise (2019). Her prose includes: The Spiral of Memory: Interviews (Poets on Poetry) (1995), For a Girl Becoming (2009), Soul Talk, Soul Language: Conversations with Joy Harjo (2011), and Crazy Brave (2012). Plays include: Wings of Night Sky, Wings of Morning Light: A Play by Joy Harjo and a Circle of Responses (2019). She has received numerous awards and honors including the American Book Award, the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award, the Ruth Lily Prize for Lifetime Achievement, the Poetry Foundation's Wallace Stevens Award, the Jackson Poetry Prize, the PEN Open Book Award, the American Indian Distinguished Achievement in the Arts Award, the Josephine Miles Poetry Award, the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award, the New Mexico Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, the William Carlos Williams Award, the Native Writers Circle of the Americas Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2009 Native American Music Award (NAMMY) for Best Female Artist, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Tulsa Artist Fellowship. Harjo was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2021. | |
| 28 | Name: | Dr. Seamus Heaney | | | Institution: | Harvard University | | | Year Elected: | 2000 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 501. Creative Artists | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1939 | | | Death Date: | August 30, 2013 | | | | | | |
Born and educated in Northern Ireland, Seamus Heaney is widely recognized as Ireland's greatest poet since William Butler Yeats. His carefully crafted work received international praise for its powerful imagery, meaningful content, musical phrasing and compelling rhythms. In 1996, Seamus Heaney was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Educated at St. Columb's College and Queen's University in Belfast, he worked as a teacher at college and university level in Belfast in the 1960s, moving with his family to the Irish Republic in 1972. After some years as an independent writer, he resumed work as a college lecturer. In 1982 he began his long association with Harvard University, coming and going for a term each year until 1996. At that time, he resigned the Boylston Professorship to begin a more flexible affiliation as Ralph Waldo Emerson Poet in Residence, a position he resigned in 2007. Between 1989 and 1994 he also served as Professor of Poetry at Oxford University. Since the publication of Death of a Naturalist in 1966, Mr. Heaney produced many works of poetry, criticism and translation. Opened Ground: Poems 1966-1996 appeared in 1998 and Finders Keepers, his selected prose, in 2002. Other recent publications include Beowulf: A New Verse Translation (1998) and Electric Light (2001). His version of Sophocles' Antigone, entitled The Burial at Thebes, was produced as part of the Abbey Theatre's centenary celebrations. In 2007 he won the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry for his latest collection, District and Circle and in 2009 he won the Royal Irish Academy's Cunningham Medal. Seamus Heaney was elected to membership in the American Philosophical Society in 2000. He died on August 30, 2013, at the age of 74, in Dublin. | |
| 29 | Name: | Dr. Jennifer Higdon | | | Year Elected: | 2019 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 501. Creative Artists | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1962 | | | | | | |
Jennifer Higdon was born on New Year’s Eve, 1962. She didn’t start playing an instrument until she taught herself to play the flute at the age of 15 and began formal studies at 18 when she entered college. Despite this late start, the Pulitzer Prize and two-time Grammy winner has become a major figure in Classical music, and is one of the few individuals in the U.S. who makes her living from commissions. Over the past two decades, Higdon has successfully broken the glass ceiling of Classical music, a musical form that has historically focused on the music of men, and even more restrictively, music from the 18th and 19th centuries. Higdon averages 200 performances a year of her works, in many genres within classical music: from opera to chamber, symphonic to band, solo works to concerti. She has even written works in forms not tackled before: a bluegrass/classical hybrid concerto, a concerto for the entire low brass section of the orchestra, and one that features 6 soloists.
After receiving the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for her Violin Concerto, Higdon also won a Grammy for her Percussion Concerto...a singular feat which no other classical composer has ever managed: two of the biggest major awards for two different pieces in one year. Additionally, she has been awarded the prestigious Nemmers Prize in Music Composition from Northwestern University, the Guggenheim Fellowship, two awards from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, the Koussevitzky Foundation Fellowship, the Pew Fellowship in the Arts, an Independence Foundation Grant, funding from the NEA, and ASCAP Awards. A winner of the Van Cliburn Piano Competition’s American Composers Invitational, her Secret & Glass Gardens was performed by the semi-finalists. Her first opera, Cold Mountain, sold out its premiere run in Santa Fe, as well as in North Carolina, and Philadelphia (becoming the third highest selling opera in Opera Philadelphia’s history). Cold Mountain won the prestigious International Opera Award for Best World Premiere in 2016; the first American opera to do so in the award’s history.
Her music has been hailed by Fanfare Magazine as having "the distinction of being at once complex, sophisticated but readily accessible emotionally," with the Times of London citing it as "...traditionally rooted, yet imbued with integrity and freshness." The Chicago Sun Times recently cited her music as "both modern and timeless, complex and sophisticated, and immensely engaging in a way that both charms and galvanizes an audience craving something new and full of urgency, yet not distancing." John von Rhein of the Chicago Tribune called her writing, "beautiful, accessible, inventive, and impeccably crafted."
Higdon's list of commissioners is extensive and includes The Philadelphia Orchestra, The Chicago Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra, The Atlanta Symphony, the Munich Philharmonic and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, as well such groups as the Tokyo String Quartet, the Lark Quartet, Eighth Blackbird, and the President’s Own Marine Band. She has also written works for such renowned artists as baritone Thomas Hampson; pianists Yuja Wang and Gary Graffman; and violinists Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Jennifer Koh, and Hilary Hahn. The demand for her music is such that there is a waiting list of soloists, orchestras and chamber groups who want to commission new works.
Higdon has been a featured composer at many festivals including Aspen, Tanglewood, Vail, Norfolk, Grand Teton, and Cabrillo. She has served as Composer-in-Residence with many orchestras, including the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Fort Worth Symphony. She was honored to serve as one of the Creative Directors of the Boundless Series for the Cincinnati Symphony. Higdon was honored to serve as the Barr Laureate Scholar at the University of Missouri Kansas City and, as winner of the Eddie Medora King Award, completed a residency at the University of Texas Austin.
Her orchestral work, blue cathedral, is one of the most performed contemporary works in the orchestral repertoire, and is widely considered the first work in the 21st century to have become part of the standard repertoire.
Higdon’s works have been recorded on more than 70 CDs. Her Percussion Concerto won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Classical Composition in 2010 and her Viola Concerto won in 2018. Her work, All Things Majestic, written for the Grand Teton Music Festival, is part of that national park’s visitor center experience.
She received a Bachelor’s Degree in Music from Bowling Green State University, an Artist Diploma from The Curtis Institute of Music, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Higdon has been awarded honorary doctorates from the Hartt School and Bowling Green State University.
Dr. Higdon currently holds the Rock Chair in Composition at The Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Her music is published exclusively by Lawdon Press. | |
| 30 | Name: | Mr. Jasper Johns | | | Year Elected: | 2007 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 501. Creative Artists | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1930 | | | | | | |
Jasper Johns was born May 15, 1930, in Augusta, Georgia, and lived in South Carolina during his childhood with his grandparents and other relatives. After studying at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, he went to New York in 1949. He attended art school for a short time before he was drafted into the army and stationed in Japan. From 1952 he lived in downtown New York, supporting himself by working in a bookstore and making display work for stores, including Tiffany & Co. The first Flag, Target and Number paintings were made in the mid-1950s and were shown in his first one-man exhibition in 1958 at the Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, where he continued to exhibit regularly. In 1959 he participated in the "Sixteen Americans" show at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. During this period, Johns made his first sculptures of a light bulb and a flashlight, and in 1960 he made the two "Painted Bronze" pieces of the Ballantine Ale cans and the Savarin coffee can with paintbrushes. Also in 1960, Johns made his first lithograph ("Target") at Tatyana Grosman's print workshop on Long Island, Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE). He has since made prints mainly at ULAE; Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles; Simca Print Artists, Inc, New York; and Atelier Crommelynck, Paris. Exhibitions of his prints were held in 1970 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and in 1982 at the Whitney Museum of American Art. In May, 1986, The Museum of Modern Art presented "Jasper Johns: A Print Retrospective," which traveled in the United States, Europe and Japan; and in 1990, two years after having acquired a complete collection of the artist's published graphic work, the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, organized the exhibition "Jasper Johns: Printed Symbols," which traveled to six other museums in the United States and Canada. In spring 1994 ULAE published "The Prints of Jasper Johns 1960-1993: A Catalogue Raisonné." Though living in New York in the 1960s, Jasper Johns worked at his studio in Edisto Beach, South Carolina several months of each year, from 1961 until it was destroyed by fire in 1966. He also traveled and worked in Japan and in Los Angeles, when he began making prints at Gemini G. E. L. Works of this period include the "0 through 9" series (1961); the "Watchman" and "Souvenir" paintings (Japan, 1964); and the large works "Diver" (1962), "According to What" (1964); "Harlem Light" (1967); and "Wall Piece" (1968). Johns' "Map (Based on Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion Air Ocean World)" (1967-71), originally made for the Montréal Expo '67, was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in 1971. In a large "Untited" painting in 1972, Johns introduced in his work a motif referred to as "cross hatch." "Scent" (1973-74) was the first work based entirely on the "cross hatch" motif, which dominated his work into the early 1980s. During this period, in 1977, the Whitney Museum of American Art presented a retrospective exhibition, "Jasper Johns," which traveled in the United States, Europe and Japan. In the beginning of 1987, Johns' show at the Leo Castelli Gallery featured four paintings of "The Seasons", along with drawings and prints based on the same theme. A set of four intaglio prints, The Seasons represented the most recent work in the exhibition "Jasper Johns: Work Since 1974", organized by and shown at the Philadelphia Museum of Art after opening at the 1988 Venice Biennale. Johns was the featured artist at the American Pavilion in Venice and recipient of the Grand Prize for the 43rd Biennale. In 1990 the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., opened the retrospective "The Drawings of Jasper Johns", later shown at the Kunstmuseum, Basel; the Hayward Gallery, London; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. In 1993 Leo Castelli celebrated his long working relationship with the artist with an exhibition "Jasper Johns: 35 Years with Leo Castelli" with works representing the 11 shows held at the gallery from 1958-93. Early in 1996, the first exhibition of Johns' sculpture, organized by the Centre for the Study of Sculpture at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, opened at the Menil Collection, Houston, and was later shown at the Leeds City Art Gallery. In the fall of the same year, the Museum of Modern Art presented a retrospective exhibition of the artist's work, which traveled to museums in Cologne and Tokyo. Most of the loans from the artist for that exhibition were featured at the opening of the Fondation Beyeler in Basel in October 1997. In 1999 the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art presented "Jasper Johns: New Paintings and Works on Paper," which traveled to the Yale University Art Gallery and the Dallas Museum of Art. In 2003 "Jasper Johns: Numbers," was exhibited at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and "Past Things and Present: Jasper Johns since 1983," at the Walker Art Cetner. The latter show traveled in the U.S., Spain, Scotland and Ireland. The year 2007 began with the opening of two exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art, Washington. "Jasper Johns: An Allegory of Painting 1955-1965" included paintings, drawings and prints relating to four subjects in Johns' work: the target, the device, stencilled names of colors, and tracings and imprints of body parts. "States and Variations: Prints by Jasper Johns" opened with the National Gallery's announcement of the acquisition from the artist of about 1,700 proofs of the various types of prints he had made since he began working in that medium in 1960. After moving to Connecticut in 1996, Johns set up a print studio, Low Road Studio, on his property. In the fall of 2004 Leo Castelli Gallery presented "Jasper Johns: Prints from the Low Road Studio", the first exhibition of those works. The Museum of Modern Art acquired three of Johns' paintings from his first exhibition at Leo Castelli Gallery in 1958. His work is now represented in numerous public and private collections throughout the world. Jasper Johns has been a director of the Foundation for Contemporary Arts since its beginning in 1963. He was artistic advisor to the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 1967-75. He received the Creative Arts Awards Citation for Painting from Brandeis University in 1970 and two medals from Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture: the Skowhegan Medal for Painting in 1972 and the Skowhegan Medal for Graphics in 1977. In 1973 he was elected a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, and in 1978 he received the City of New York Mayor's Award of Honor for Arts and Culture. He became a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 1984. The American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters awarded Johns the Gold Medal for Graphic Art in 1986, the same year in which the Wolf Foundation of Israel awarded him the Wolf Prize for Painting. In 1988 Brandeis University honored him again with the Creative Arts Awards Medal for Painting. In the same year he received the Grand Prize at the XLIII Venice Biennale and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1990 Johns was presented a National Medal of Arts at the White House by President Bush, and in 1993 he received the Praemium Imperiale for painting from the Japan Art Association in Tokyo. The MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, New Hampshire, awarded Johns the Edward MacDowell Medal in 1994. In 1997 he was made an Academician in the Class of Painting of the National Academy/ Museum and School of Fine Arts, New York. At present, Jasper Johns maintains studios in Connecticut and the French West Indies, where he works on paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints. He was awarded the 2010 Medal of Freedom by President Obama. His latest museum exhibition, "Jasper Johns: Gray", opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2008. | |
| 31 | Name: | Mr. William Kentridge | | | Year Elected: | 2012 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 501. Creative Artists | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1955 | | | | | | |
William Kentridge was born in Johannesburg in 1955 into a Jewish family of political activists, lawyers who took on civil-rights cases against apartheid. He earned a B.A. in politics and African studies and a diploma in fine arts from Johannesburg Art Foundation. Between 1975 and 1991 he was acting and directing in Johannesburg’s Junction Avenue Theatre Company. His early work focused on narrative graphics, sometimes in series reminiscent of comic strips and more recently has developed into a radical fusion of the nature of drawing, print-making, and cinematography in which he photographs a graphic work, alters it, and films it again, creating animate images out of still ones. Traces of what had been erased remain visible, giving a sense of fading memory and the passing of time. His oeuvre addresses political and social themes from a personal viewpoint, often including self-portraits. In a series of nine short films, he introduces characters who reveal the emotional and political struggles affecting the lives of South Africans in the years before and after the abolition of Apartheid. He has directed films, plays and operas; his recent production of Mozart’s Magic Flute was warmly received in New York City. His filmic work, Five Themes, filling the four walls of five large galleries exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco and New York was included in the annual Time 100 list of the top people and events of 2009, and was selected as the best museum exhibit of the year by the International Association of Art Critics. Kentridge has been given major exhibitions in the Louvre, the Jeu de Paume and the Albertina museums, and in nine other countries. In 2012 he was awarded with the Centennial Medal of the American Academy in Rome. | |
| 32 | Name: | Mr. Tony Kushner | | | Year Elected: | 2013 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 501. Creative Artists | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1956 | | | | | | |
Tony Kushner's plays include A Bright Room Called Day; Angels in America, Parts One and Two; Slavs!; Homebody/Kabul; the musical Caroline, or Change and the opera A Blizzard on Marblehead Neck, both with composer Jeanine Tesori; and The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide To Capitalism And Socialism With A Key To The Scriptures. He has adapted and translated Pierre Corneille's The Illusion, S.Y. Ansky's The Dybbuk, Bertolt Brecht's The Good Person of Sezuan and Mother Courage and Her Children; and the English-language libretto for the opera Brundibár by Hans Krasa. He wrote the screenplays for Mike Nichols' film of Angels In America, and for Steven Spielberg's Munich and Lincoln. His books include Brundibar, with illustrations by Maurice Sendak; The Art of Maurice Sendak, 1980 to the Present; and Wrestling With Zion: Progressive Jewish-American Responses to the Palestinian/Israeli Conflict, co-edited with Alisa Solomon. Kushner is the recipient of a Pulitzer Prize, two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards, two Evening Standard Awards, an Olivier Award, an Emmy Award, two Oscar nominations, and the Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, among other honors. He was presented the 2012 National Medal of Arts by President Obama. He lives in Manhattan with his husband, Mark Harris. | |
| 33 | Name: | Mr. John Lithgow | | | Year Elected: | 2019 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 501. Creative Artists | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1945 | | | | | | |
John Lithgow is an actor and the founder of Arts First. He earned his B.A. from Harvard University in 1967.
John Lithgow is one of the country’s most distinguished actors, and has been for decades. Trained as a Shakespearean actor, he is also accomplished on the stage in modern drama; in movies, in drama and comedy; and on television in roles ranging from an extraterrestrial to Winston Churchill. He is the author of an engrossing memoir, and has performed around the country in a one-man play derived in part from it. Deeply committed to arts education, he has written and recorded children’s books and has served on several commissions aimed at enhancing education in the arts. His alma mater, Harvard, has celebrated his accomplishments on many occasions, including with an honorary degree.
His awards include: Best Featured Actor in a Play, 1973, Best Actor in a Musical, 2002, Tony Awards; Best Supporting Actor, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, 1982; Best Supporting Actor, New York Film Critics Association, 1982; Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series, 1986, Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series, 1996, 1997, 1999, Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series, 2010, Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, 2017, Primetime Emmy Awards; Best Actor - Television Series Musical or Comedy, 1997, Best Supporting Actor - Series, Miniseries, or Television Film, 2010, Golden Globes Awards; Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series, 1997, 1998, Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series, 2017, Screen Actors Guild Awards; Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, Critics Choice Awards, 2016; Harvard Arts Medal, 2017. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (2010). He is the author of Drama: An Actor's Education (2011) and a number of children's books. John Lithgow was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2019. | |
| 34 | Name: | Mr. Yo-Yo Ma | | | Year Elected: | 1999 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 501. Creative Artists | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1955 | | | | | | |
The many-faceted career of cellist Yo-Yo Ma is testament to his continual search for new ways to communicate with audiences, and to his personal desire for artistic growth and renewal. Whether performing a new concerto, revisiting a familiar work from the cello repertoire, coming together with colleagues for chamber music or exploring musical forms outside of the Western classical tradition, Mr. Ma strives to find connections that stimulate the imagination. Yo-Yo Ma maintains a balance between his engagements as soloist with orchestras throughout the world and his recital and chamber music activities. He draws inspiration from a wide circle of collaborators, each fueled by the artists' interactions. One of Mr. Ma's goals is the exploration of music as a means of communication and as a vehicle for the migrations of ideas across a range of cultures throughout the world. Expanding upon this interest, in 1998 Mr. Ma established the Silk Road Project to promote the study of the cultural, artistic and intellectual traditions along the ancient Silk Road trade route that stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Pacific Ocean. By examining the flow of ideas throughout this vast area, the Project seeks to illuminate the heritages of the Silk Road countries and identify the voices that represent these traditions today. The Project's major activities have included the 2002 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, which included more than 400 artists from 25 countries and drew more than 1.3 million visitors, concerts at the 2005 World Expo in Aichi, Japan, and Silk Road Chicago, a city-wide year-long residency in partnership with the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the City of Chicago. Mr. Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble performed at the Opening Ceremony of the 2007 Special Olympics in Shanghai. Continuing over the next few years, in collaboration with leading museums in Asia, Europe and North America, the Project will co-produce a series of performance, exhibition and educational events focusing on great works of art from each museum's collections. Mr. Ma is an exclusive Sony Classical artist, and his discography of over 75 albums (including more than 15 Grammy Award winners) reflects his wide-ranging interests. He has made several successful recordings that defy categorization, among them "Hush" with Bobby McFerrin, "Appalachia Waltz" and "Appalachian Journey" with Mark O'Connor and Edgar Meyer and two Grammy-winning tributes to the music of Brazil, "Obrigado Brazil" and "Obrigado Brazil - Live in Concert." Mr. Ma's most recent recordings include "Paris: La Belle Époque," with pianist Kathryn Stott, and "New Impossibilities," a live album recorded with the Silk Road Ensemble and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; he also appears on John Williams' soundtrack for Rob Marshall's film "Memoirs of a Geisha." Across this full range of releases Mr. Ma remains one of the best-selling recording artists in the classical field. All of his recent albums have quickly entered the Billboard chart of classical best sellers, remaining in the Top 15 for extended periods, often with as many as four titles simultaneously on the list. Yo-Yo Ma is strongly committed to educational programs that not only bring young audiences into contact with music but also allow them to participate in its creation. While touring, he takes time whenever possible to conduct master classes as well as more informal programs for students, musicians and non-musicians alike. He has also reached young audiences through appearances on "Arthur," "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" and "Sesame Street." Yo-Yo Ma was born in 1955 to Chinese parents living in Paris. He began to study the cello with his father at age four and soon came with his family to New York, where he spent most of his formative years. Later, his principal teacher was Leonard Rose at the Juilliard School. He sought out a traditional liberal arts education to expand upon his conservatory training, graduating from Harvard University in 1976. He has received numerous awards, including the Avery Fisher Prize (1978), the Glenn Gould Prize (1999), the National Medal of the Arts (2001), the Dan David Prize (2006), the Sonning Prize (2006), the World Economic Forum's Crystal Award (2008), the 2010 Medal of Freedom, the 2015 Antonin Dvorak Prize, and the 2016 Getty Medal. In 2006, then Secretary General Kofi Annan named him a United Nations Messenger of Peace. In 2007, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon extended his appointment. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra brought him aboard as a Creative Consultant in 2009. Mr. Ma and his wife have two children. Mr. Ma plays two instruments, a 1733 Montagnana cello from Venice and the 1712 Davidoff Stradivarius. | |
| 35 | Name: | Mary, Viscountess Eccles | | | Institution: | Centre for American Studies at the British Library | | | Year Elected: | 1978 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 501. Creative Artists | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1912 | | | Death Date: | August 26, 2003 | | | | |
| 36 | Name: | Mr. Cormac McCarthy | | | Institution: | Santa Fe Institute | | | Year Elected: | 2012 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 501. Creative Artists | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1933 | | | Death Date: | June 13, 2023 | | | | | | |
Cormac McCarthy is often cited as one of America’s foremost writers of fiction. His beautiful, spare prose has won him widespread praise from scholars and critics. In 2010, the London Times ranked McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Road, #1 on its list of the 100 best fiction and non-fiction books of the past 10 years. McCarthy’s work has ranged from American Southern Gothic, to westerns, to post-apocalyptic allegory, with themes of obsession, impending doom, and the dark nature of humankind that sometimes echo his favorite book, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. He is the author of The Orchard Keeper, 1965; Outer Dark, 1968; Child of God, 1974; Suttree, 1979; Blood Meridian, Or the Evening Redness in the West, 1985; All the Pretty Horses, 1992; The Crossing, 1994; The Stonemason: A Play in Five Acts, 1994; The Gardener’s Son: A Screenplay, 1996; Cities of the Plain, 1998; No Country for Old Men, 2005; The Road, 2006; and The Sunset Limited: A Novel in Dramatic Form, 2006. His awards include the Ingram-Merrill Award, 1959, 1960; Faulkner Prize, 1965; Guggenheim Fellowship, 1969; MacArthur Fellowship 1981; National Book Award, National Book Foundation, 1992; National Book Critics Circle Award, 1992; James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction, 2006; Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2007; and the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction, PEN American Center, 2008.
Cormac McCarthy is a Senior Fellow and a member of the Board of Trustees at the Santa Fe Institute. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2012. | |
| 37 | Name: | Dr. Daniel Mendelsohn | | | Institution: | Bard College | | | Year Elected: | 2006 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 501. Creative Artists | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1960 | | | | | | |
Daniel Mendelsohn, an award-winning author, journalist, and critic, was born in New York City in 1960 and received his B.A. summa cum laude in Classics from the University of Virginia and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Classics from Princeton University, where he was a Mellon Fellow in the Humanities. After completing his Ph.D. in 1994, he began a career in journalism in New York City, and since then his articles, essays, reviews and translations have appeared frequently in numerous national publications, including The New Yorker, The New York Times, New York, The New York Review of Books, The Nation, Esquire, and The Paris Review. From 2000 until 2002, he was the weekly book critic for New York Magazine, for which he won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Excellence in Criticism in 2001. Since 2000, he has been a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books; for his theater reviews in the latter, he was awarded the 2002 George Jean Nathan Prize for Drama Criticism. His book reviews and essays on literary topics appear as well in The New Yorker and The New York Times Book Review, and he also writes about travel for Travel + Leisure. His work has been widely anthologized in collections including The Best American Travel Writing, The Mrs. Dalloway Reader, Quick Studies: The Best of Lingua Franca, and - for "Republicans Can Be Cured!", his satirical New York Times Op-Ed piece about the discovery of a gene for political conservatism - Best American Humor. In addition to his other awards, Mr. Mendelsohn is the recipient of a 2005 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. Daniel Mendelsohn's 1999 memoir of sexual identity and family history, The Elusive Embrace: Desire and the Riddle of Identity (Knopf, 1999; Vintage, 2000) was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year. His scholarly study of Greek tragedy, Gender and the City in Euripides' Political Plays, was published in October 2002 by Oxford University Press, and appeared in February 2005 in paperback. His book The Lost: A Search for Six Million, the story of his search to learn about the fates of family members who perished in the Holocaust, was awarded the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography and France's Prix Medicis, among many other prizes. In August 2008 a collection of his literary and critical essays, How Beautiful It Is and How Easily It Can Be Broken, was published by Harper Collins. Spring of 2009 saw the publication of his new translations, with commentary, of the Complete Works of C.P. Cavafy, and of Cavafy's Unfinished Poems (Knopf). Waiting for the Barbarians (2012) was a finalist for the NBCC award in criticism and the PEN Art of the Essay prize. In 2014 he was awarded the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2020 he published Three Rings: A Tale of Exile, Narrative, and Fate. | |
| 38 | Name: | Mr. Paul Moravec | | | Institution: | Adelphi University | | | Year Elected: | 2010 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 501. Creative Artists | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1957 | | | | | | |
Through his Tempest Fantasy, his recent opera, his numerous orchestral and choral works, as well as the chamber piece Useful Knowledge created for Benjamin Franklin's words and an instrument that Franklin is believed to have invented (the glass harmonica), Paul Moravec has achieved great distinction among the new generation of tonal composers. His theatrical instincts are reflected in his choice of themes, such as Shakespeare's Tempest, a blizzard in the 19th century, and Maugham's steamy tale of adultery in Southeast Asia. His exceptional mastery of orchestration has produced music of great emotional intensity. He contributes energetically to the promotion of contemporary music by supporting younger musicians, by frequently speaking before concerts and operas, and by actively collaborating with writers. Dr. Moravec is currently University Professor at Adelphi University, having earned his D.M.A. from Columbia University in 1987. In addition to those works listed above, he composed Blizzard Voices in 2007, The Letter in 2009, and the music for Sanctuary Road in 2018. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2004 and the Arts and Letters Award in Music from the Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2012. Paul Moravec was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2010 | |
| 39 | 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. | |
| 40 | Name: | Professor Chloe Anthony (Toni) Morrison | | | Institution: | Princeton University | | | Year Elected: | 1994 | | | Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | | | Subdivision: | 501. Creative Artists | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1931 | | | Death Date: | August 5, 2019 | | | | | | |
Chloe A. "Toni" Morrison was a novelist who also served for over 17 years as Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Council of the Humanities at Princeton University. Her writing, for which she was awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature, is known for its great emotional range, epic themes, subtlety, vivid dialogue and verbal power. After earning degrees from Howard University (B.A., 1953) and Cornell University (M.A., 1955), Ms. Morrison taught English at Howard and Texas Southern Universities and the State University of New York and worked as a textbook editor, during which time she played an instrumental role in bringing African-American literature into the mainstream.
In 1970 she published her first novel, The Bluest Eye, which she had written while teaching at Howard and raising two children. Sula, a novel about two black women friends, followed in 1973, and in 1977 Ms. Morrison published the family chronicle Song of Solomon, which won the National Critics Award and brought her to national attention. Subsequent books included 1981's Tar Baby, in which she expanded her exploration of issues of class, sexuality, racial identity and family dynamics, and 1987's Beloved, for which she was awarded the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Loosely based on the life and legal case of escaped slave Margaret Garner, Beloved was cited by The New York Times in 2006 as the best work of fiction of the past 25 years. Ms. Morrison's most recent works include Jazz (1992), Paradise (1999), Love (2003), A Mercy (2008), Little Cloud and Lady Wind (2010), Home (2012), God Help the Children (2015) and she has also published a series of children's books with her son Slade Morrison. Fellow APS member Cornel West has said that her writing "has a lyricism that reminds you of Tennessee Williams, a sense of drama that reminds you of Schiller, and a rhythm that reminds you of Sara Vaughan." A truly gifted writer whose lyrical prose delighted both literary critics and the general public, Toni Morrison opened the eyes of all readers to the incredible richness, variety and humor of African-American life.
Her awards include the 2009 Norman Mailer Writers Colony Award, the 2012 Medal of Freedom presented by President Obama, the National Book Critics Circle Arad Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2016 Edward MacDowell Medal, the 2016 Saul Bellow Award from the PEN American Center, the 2017 Emerson-Thoreau Medal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and the 2019 American Academy of Arts and Letters' Gold Medal for Fiction. She was awarded the American Philosophical Society's Thomas Jefferson Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences in 2018. The award was presented "in recognition of a distinguished lifetime of extraordinary contributions to American letters." Toni Morrison was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1994. She died August 5, 2019 in New York, New York at the age of 88. | |
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