Announcements

Twenty-six artists receive awards and purchase prizes totaling over $250,000.

Seventeen writers will receive the Academy’s 2019 awards in literature.

In mid-May, Lorrie Moore, secretary, will induct eleven members into the 250-person organization and Billie Tsien, president, will induct five foreign honorary members.

Ensemble Échappé will play contemporary classical works by Kathryn Alexander, Andrew Rudin, Christopher Theofanidis, and Scott Wheeler on Sunday, March 17, 2019 at 3 p.m.

Sixteen recipients receive this year’s awards in music, which total $195,000.

Bhangin’ it and The Lucky Ones have won the 2019 Richard Rodgers Awards for Musical Theater.

Paintings, sculptures, video, photographs, and works on paper by 32 contemporary artists will be exhibited from Thursday, March 7 through Sunday, April 7, 2019.

The Academy has awarded its 2018 Presidential Citation to Gerry Irizarry, a design teacher at Urban Assembly Maker Academy in Manhattan.

The 2018 Blashfield Address, entitled “The Ideal of Excellence,” was delivered by Paula Kerger on May 23, 2018, at the Academy’s annual Ceremonial.  Ms. Kerger has been president and CEO of PBS since 2006. Listen to address by clicking below.  

A statement from the Board responding to sexual misconduct allegations against members.

Architect Billie Tsien was elected president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Ms. Tsien, who was inducted into the Academy in 2007, will serve a three-year term from January 2018 to January 2021.

Cody Upton has been appointed Executive Director of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, beginning July 1, 2017. He will succeed Virginia Dajani, who is retiring after 27 years. Upton will be the fifth Executive Director in the Academy’s 119-year history.