First Class of Doris Duke Artists Awarded Total of $5.775 Million

First Class of Doris Duke Artists Awarded Total of $5.775 Million

Don Byron, Rinde Eckert, Bill Frisell, John Hollenbeck, Vijay Iyer, Nicole Mitchell, and Meredith Monk are among the 21 American performing artists working in contemporary dance, jazz, theatre, and multidisciplinary work who have been named as part of the first class of Doris Duke Artists, a new initiative of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

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New Music USA

doris dukeDon Byron, Rinde Eckert, Bill Frisell, John Hollenbeck, Vijay Iyer, Nicole Mitchell, and Meredith Monk are among the 21 American performing artists working in contemporary dance, jazz, theatre, and multidisciplinary work who have been named as part of the first class of Doris Duke Artists, a new initiative of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Each will receive an unrestricted, multi-year cash grant of $225,000, plus as much as $50,000 more in targeted support for retirement savings and audience development. Creative Capital, DDCF’s primary partner in the Doris Duke Performing Artist Awards, will also offer the awardees the opportunity to take part in professional development activities, financial and legal counseling, and grantee gatherings—all designed to help them maximize the use of their grants.

DDCF is granting these awards as part of a $50 million, ten-year commitment over and above its existing funding for the performing arts. By the end of the ten years, DDCF will have offered a total of at least 200 artists greatly expanded freedom to create, through an initiative that makes available the largest allocation of unrestricted cash grants ever given to individuals in contemporary dance, jazz, theatre and related fields. Provided to honorees through a rigorous, anonymous process of peer review—no applications are accepted—the grants are not tied to any specific project but are made as investments in the artists’ personal and professional development and future work.

DDCF is naming the first Doris Duke Artists in the year that marks the centenary of the birth of Doris Duke (1912-1993). The complete list of 2012 inaugural award recipients includes:

· Anne Bogart, theatre (New York, NY)
· Don Byron, jazz (New York, NY)
· Wally Cardona, dance (Brooklyn, NY)
· Rinde Eckert, multidisciplinary performance (Upper Nyack, NY)
· Bill Frisell, jazz (Seattle, WA)
· Deborah Hay, dance (Austin, TX)
· John Hollenbeck, jazz (Binghamton, NY)
· Vijay Iyer, jazz (New York, NY)
· Marc Bamuthi Joseph, multidisciplinary performance (Oakland, CA)
· Elizabeth LeCompte, theatre (New York, NY)
· Young Jean Lee, theatre (Brooklyn, NY)
· Ralph Lemon, dance (New York, NY)
· Richard Maxwell, theatre (Brooklyn, NY)
· Sarah Michelson, dance (Brooklyn, NY)
· Bebe Miller, dance (New York, NY and Columbus, OH)
· Nicole Mitchell, jazz (Long Beach, CA and Chicago, IL)
· Meredith Monk, multidisciplinary performance (New York, NY)
· Eiko Otake, dance (New York, NY)
· Takashi Koma Otake, dance (New York, NY)
· Basil Twist, theatre (New York, NY)
· Reggie Wilson, dance (Brooklyn, NY)

To qualify for consideration by the review panels, all of the Doris Duke Artists must have won grants, prizes or awards on a national level for at least three different projects over the past ten years, with at least one project having received support from a DDCF-funded program. The first class of artists were chosen based on demonstrated evidence of exceptional creativity, ongoing self-challenge, and the continuing potential to make significant contributions to their fields in the future.

DDCF will eventually name a total of at least 100 Doris Duke Artists, each of whom will receive $225,000 as an unrestricted cash grant over three to five years and will qualify for an additional $25,000 earmarked for audience development—including but not limited to arts education. In addition, DDCF is prepared to provide $25,000 more on an incentive matching basis for retirement savings. DDCF will also offer Doris Duke Impact Awards to at least 100 jazz, theatre, contemporary dance and multidisciplinary artists, selected through an anonymous peer-review process for their demonstrated potential to influence their fields. Unlike the Doris Duke Artists, these individuals may not yet have received significant national support. Each Impact Award recipient will receive $60,000 in unrestricted funding over a period of two to three years, an additional $10,000 earmarked for audience development and $10,000 on an incentive matching basis for retirement savings. The Doris Duke Artist Awards and the Doris Duke Impact Awards will be announced in classes of approximately twenty between 2012 and 2016, and 2014 and 2018, respectively.

More information about the Doris Duke Performing Artist Awards is available at ddpaa.org.

(—from the press release)