Announcements

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.  

Works will be on view from May 24 through June 17 at the Academy galleries.

Smiljan Radic, Brad Cloepfil, MASS Design Group, Cassim Shepard, and William Stout receive awards.

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

Twenty-four artists receive awards and purchase prizes.

Gun & Powder and KPOP have won the 2018 Richard Rodgers Awards for Musical Theater.

The $100,000 award recognizes a writer of distinction who has made a significant contribution to American literature.

Fifteen established and emerging writers of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry receive awards totaling $185,000.

Eighteen composers receive awards totaling $225,000.

Five artists, eight writers, and three composers elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The induction ceremony will be held in May 2018.

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.

On Sunday, March 18, 2018, at 3 p.m., Ensemble Échappé will play contemporary classical works by the winners of the 2017 Arts and Letters Awards in Music in the Academy’s Library. A reception will then follow in the galleries where the 2018 Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts, with works by 35 contemporary artists, will be on view.

The $40,000 award, endowed by the Virgil Thomson Foundation and administered by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, recognizes an American composer of vocal works.

Paintings, sculptures, video, film, and works on paper by 35 contemporary artists will be exhibited in the galleries of the American Academy of Arts and Letters on historic Audubon Terrace (Broadway between 155 and 156 Streets) from Thursday, March 8 through Sunday, April 8, 2018.

Huck Hodge has won the Charles Ives Living Award and will receive $200,000 over a two-year period beginning in July 2018.

The American Academy of Arts and Letters has awarded its 2017 Presidential Citation to Graham Johnson, a music teacher at Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School (WHEELS) in Manhattan.

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.