The National Medal of Arts and the Charles Frankel Prize have been awarded to 16 people and an organization.
The 12 winners of the arts medal, which has been awarded annually to distinguished artists and patrons since 1984, were chosen by President Clinton in collaboration with the National Endowment for the Arts.The Frankel Prize, awarded annually by the National Endowment for the Humanities, went to five Americans who have brought the humanities to a wide public audience.
The prize is named in honor of Charles Frankel (1917-1979), a professor of philosophy at Columbia University who was assistant secretary of State for cultural affairs and the first director of the Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, N.C.
Sen. Claiborne Pell, D-R.I., received the Presidential Citizens Medal in recognition of his advocacy of the arts and humanities. Pell is the chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Education, Arts and Humanities.
The following were awared the National Medal of Arts:
- Harry Belafonte, actor and singer, New York.
- Dave Brubeck, jazz musician and composer, Wilton, Conn.
- Celia Cruz, salsa singer, New York.
- Dorothy DeLay, violin teacher, Upper Nyack, N.Y.
- Julie Harris, actress, West Chatham, Mass.
- Erick Hawkins, choreographer, New York.
- Gene Kelly, actor and dancer, Beverly Hills, Calif.
- Pete Seeger, folk singer, Beacon, N.Y.
- Catherine Filene Shouse, arts patron, Vienna, Va.
- Wayne Thiebaud, painter, Sacramento, Calif.
- Richard Wilbur, poet, Cummington, Mass.
- Young Audiences, a nonprofit arts organization with branches around the country, including Salt Lake City.
The following were awarded the Frankel Prize:
- Ernest L. Boyer, president, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Princeton, N.J.
- William Kittredge, writer on the American West, Missoula, Mont.
- Peggy Whitman Prenshaw, scholar of Southern literature, Baton Rouge, La.
- Sharon Percy Rockefeller, former president of WETA public television in Washington, Alexandria, Va.
- Dorothy Porter Wesley, former librarian at Howard University, Washington.
- FOUR AMERICANS have been awarded Kennedy Center Friedheim Awards for new symphonic works following a concert earlier this month at the Kennedy Center.
First place and a prize of $5,000 went to composer Leon Kirchner for his "Music for Cello and Orchestra." Born in 1919, Kirchner was the recipient of the 1967 Pulitzer Prize for Music.
Tison Street was awarded the $2,500 second prize for "Bright Sambas" after its performance by the National Symphony under James Paul. A native of Boston, the 51-year-old Street was a student of Kirchner's at Harvard.
Third prize of $1,500 was shared by John Anthony Lennon, for his "Zingari" for guitar and orchestra, and Jay Alen Yim, for his piece "Rain
Palace." The next Kennedy Center Friedheim Awards will be for chamber music, with a submission deadline of May 15, 1995.
- AFTER THE USUAL televised drama, complete with a panel of local literati providing sports-style commentary, the 1994 Booker Prize was announced in London on Tuesday.
And the winner was "How Late It Was, How Late," a pungent story about a down-on-his-luck laborer in Glasgow, by the Scottish novelist James Kelman.
Kelman's novel, published by Secker & Warburg, beat out five other nominees for the $31,500 prize, winning 3 to 2 after a long debate by the five judges. The Booker is annually awarded to a novel written in English and published first by a British publisher.
In the United States, book competitions are generally dreary affairs, with interest limited to the circle connected to the nominated authors and publishers. But in England the Booker Prize is a big deal, and bookmakers even set odds on which books will prevail.
Paul Austin, who set the odds at the bookmaking agency Ladbroke's, in London, accurately predicted this year's winner. "This will be startling to you, but I read all the books," Austin said in a telephone interview.
"Or at least parts of them. That was enough for me. This is my fourth year reading the short list and setting the odds, and I still probably haven't read 30 books in my life."
"How Late It Was, How Late" hasn't yet been published in the United States, but St. Martin's Press bid a paltry $7,500 for it in a recent auction. Kelman will no doubt raise his price now.
- MARTHA GRAHAM was celebrated at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, which opened its Next Wave Festival with two weeks' performances by the Martha Graham Dance Company. The program, billed as "Radical Graham," is close to celebrationg the centennial of Graham's birth, in 1895. Seminal works danced included "Cave of the Heart," "El Penitente" and "Deaths and Entrances."
The centennial celebration began last October when the company danced at the City Center, with prima ballerina Natalia Makarova dancing a solo; then on to the Spoleto Festival in Italy in July, and Jacob's Pillow in Massachusetts in August. Much more is planned for the coming year.
- SOPRANO PATRICIA RACETTE received the 1994 Marian Anderson Award of $25,000. The award goes to an American singer of great promise in opera, recital and orchestral-oratorio repertory. It is not a competition; singers are unaware they are being considered for the prize, but are nominated throughout the year by critics, orchestra and opera company officials.
- FOR THE ITINERANT opera fan who needs a way to know what's playing where, Opera America publishes an annual guide that lists schedules and production information (but not casts) for most American and a handful of foreign companies.
This year's edition, snappily titled "Season Schedule of Performances 1994-95," runs 128 pages (up from 104 last year) and lists the offerings of more than 100 companies affiliated with Opera America, a 24-year-old organization that provides information, advice and administrative services for professional opera companies.
The listings, arranged by company, include mailing addresses, administrative and box office phone numbers, and seating capacities.
There is also a listing of world premieres and a works index that allows readers to track their favorite operas, or to see at a glance that Puccini's "Boheme," with 28 productions scheduled from Hawaii to Finland, is getting the best coverage.
The pocket-size book is available for $12 (plus a $3 handling fee per order) from Opera America, 777 14th Street NW, Suite 520, Washington DC 20005, or by fax, (202) 393-0735.
- FIRST LADY HILLARY CLINTON arranged to open a new exhibit of 12 pieces of American sculpture in the Jacqueline Kennedy garden at the White House.
The display, featuring 20th century American sculptors on loan from 10 museums, mostly in the Midwest, will remain on display for six months, and will be seen by all public visitors who pass through the East Wing colonnade.
The linear sculptures are featured in Williamsburg-style garden squares surrouded by short boxwood hedges.
In a written statement, Clinton said that the exhibition celebrates "the special genius of American artists and their enduring capacity to stir our imagination and touch our hearts."
The curator is George W. Neubert, director of the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.
Pieces of sculpture from other museums around the country will be shown in the revolving exhibit.
The pieces currently on exhibit are "Observer," by Louise Bourgeois; "Five Rudders," by Alexander Calder; "Drift Falls," by Bryan Hunt; "Parker's Dream," by Richard Hunt; "Curve VIII," by Ellsworth Kelly; "Standing Woman," by Gaston Lachaise; "Diana" and "Actaeon," both by Paul Manship; "Airelia Number 1," by Manuel Neri; "Tropical Tree III," by Louise Nevelson; "Walking Man," by George Segal; and "Shield," by Judith Shea.