Category: Hermitage Greenfield Prize

The Hermitage Artist Retreat and the Greenfield Foundation are proud to announce that Composer-Pianist Vijay Iyer is the winner of the $30,000 Greenfield Prize, awarded this year in the field of music. Iyer will receive the award at a special celebration dinner on April 1, 2012 in Sarasota, FL. Serving on the jury that selected Iyer were Linda Golding, past president of Boosey & Hawkes, Inc. music publishers and founder of The Reservoir; Jennifer Koh, solo violinist and prolific recitalist, and Limor Tomer, general manager of concerts and lectures at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“I’m honored, delighted, and surprised by this award,” said Mr. Iyer. “It’s rare and astonishing for my work to be embraced on such a scale, and it’s a particularly special honor coming from the Greenfield Prize’s interdisciplinary perspective. This award will make a tremendous difference in my life in the coming year. It enables me to focus less on ‘career’ and more on art and community, two powerful and interrelated forces that can nourish and sustain us all. For this opportunity I am tremendously grateful.”

We are very excited to make this announcement. Since the Prize is awarded in rotation to three different arts disciplines, every year we have the great privilege of working with the top people in whatever field the prize is to be awarded in. Linda, Jennifer and Limor did a wonderful job. We look forward to April 1 when we not only present Vijay with the Prize, but also begin the two-year process of working with him and provide whatever support he needs to realize his commission.

Vijay Iyer is a Grammy-nominated composer-pianist who has been described by Pitchford as “one of the most interesting and vital young pianists in jazz today,” by The New Yorker as one of “today’s most important pianists…extravagantly gifted… brilliantly eclectic,” and by Los Angeles Weekly as a “boundless and deeply important young star.” He was voted the 2010 Musician of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association and named one the 50 most Influential Global Indians” by GQ India. Iyer has released 15 albums, including the Grammy-nominated “Historicity” (2009), which was named #1 Jazz album of the year in the NY Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Detroit Metro Times, NPR, PopMatters.com, Village Voice Jazz Critics Poll and Downbeat International Critics Poll. Among his many awards, Iyer has received the Alpert Award of the Arts and the New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship.

On March 13 Iyer is releasing his new CD titled Accelerando (ACT Music + Vision). In addition to his performing life, he has composed on commission for the Silk Road Ensemble, Brentano String Quartet, American Composer’s Orchestra, Ethel, and filmmakers Bill Morrison (who will be in residence at the Hermitage this spring) and Haile Gerima.

The producing partner for this year’s Greenfield Prize winner will be the La Musica International Chamber Music Festival. As producing partner they will be a resource to Mr. Iyer as he completes his commission and they will be premiering the work in the 2014 festival.
You can find much more information on Vijay Iyer on his website at www.vijay-iyver.com. And you can see Mr. Iyer in concert recorded recently (January 12, 2012) on the National Public Radio site at http://www.npr.org/event/music/144979104/vijay-iyer-trio-live-in-concert?sc=fb&cc=fmp&fb_source=message.

Hermitage Artist Retreat and the Greenfield Foundation are pleased to announce that the winner of the 2011 Greenfield Prize has been awarded this year in Drama to Playwright John Guare. The award will be presented at a Celebration dinner on Sunday, March 27th at Michael’s on East in Sarasota. Oskar Eustis, Tony-award winning artistic director of New York’s Public Theatre, will be the keynote speaker.

“Our prestigious jury has done it again,” remarked , executive director of the Hermitage Artist Retreat. “John Guare is one of America’s great playwrights. We are thrilled that over the next two years, he will be working on a new play for American theaters that will be created at the Hermitage Artist Retreat and have its first public introduction in Sarasota in 2013.”

John Guare is an award-winning playwright well known to many regular theater-goers. Among his most recognized plays are Lydie Breeze; A Free Man of Color; Bosoms and Neglect; and The House of Blue Leaves, which won an Obie and NY Drama Critics Circle Award for the Best American Play of 1970-71 and four Tonys in its 1986 Lincoln Center revival. Six Degrees of Separation received the NY Drama Critics Circle Award in 1991 for its LCT production and the Olivier Best Play Award in 1993. Additionally, Guare wrote the lyrics and co-authored the book for the 1972 Tony-winning Best Musical, Two Gentlemen of Verona. His screenplay for Louis Malle’s Atlantic City earned him an Oscar nomination. In 2003 he won the PEN/Laura Pels Master Dramatist Award; in 2004, the Gold Medal in Drama from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; in 2005 the Obie for sustained excellence. He is a council member of the Dramatists Guild and co-editor of The Lincoln Center Theater Review.

The Greenfield Prize winner is selected each year by a panel of experts in the arts discipline for that year’s award, which rotates annually through three arts areas, drama, music, and an open “wild card” year. This year’s category was drama, making John Guare the second playwright to receive the Greenfield Prize. Guare was selected from a pool of over 30 playwrights, nominated by a prestigious jury, three voting and three non-voting. Voting jurors were Michael Bigelow Dixon, chair and current assistant professor of theater at Goucher College, former literary manager at the Guthrie Theatre and Actors Theatre of Louisville; Carey Perloff, artistic director of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco; and Eduardo Machado, playwright currently writing for HBO television, and past artistic director of INTAR in New York City. Non-voting members included Bruce E. Rodgers, executive director of the Hermitage Artist Retreat, Joni Greenfield, representing the Greenfield Foundation and Michael D. Edwards, producing artistic director of Asolo Rep.

“We are grateful to the Greenfield Foundation for making it possible to inspire new works of art from America’s most important artists,” Rodgers continued. “The Greenfield Prize is contributing to the artistic legacy of America at this time and will continue to contribute into the future. The Hermitage Artist Retreat is proud to play a central role in this process.”

The Greenfield Prize was established in 2009 by longtime Sarasota residents Bob and Louise Greenfield through the Philadelphia-based Greenfield Foundation. The prize is a means by which a groundbreaking, enduring work of art will be created each year at the Hermitage Artist Retreat. The Prize consists of a $30,000 commission of an original work of art, a residency at the Hermitage, and a partnership with a professional arts organization to develop the work, and assistance in moving the work forward into the American arts world. A distinguished six-person panel consisting of some of the most highly respected authorities in American art select each Greenfield Prize recipient. Three voting members on each jury are joined by representatives of the producing partner, the Greenfield Foundation and the Hermitage Artist Retreat. Since its inception, past prize winners include playwright Craig Lucus, composer Eve Beglarian and visual artist Sanford Biggers.

Today was an exciting day for the Hermitage. We had the first meeting of the Greenfield Prize jury, the group of national industry (theatre) experts, setting off on a journey to select a playwright to receive the 2011 Greenfield Prize at the Hermitage Artist Retreat – a $30,000 commission for a new work to be premiered in 2013, a Hermitage residency, and a partnership with the Asolo Repertory Theatre. While we don’t reveal the names of the jury members until a winner is selected, they are three of the most important and visible names in the American professional theatre.

During this stage of the prize process, we meet by conference call – we are scattered across the country. We will reconvene on the telephone in three weeks when we compile a list of approximately 30 playwrights suggested by the jury. These names will be winnowed down to 3-4 writers who will receive a letter out of the the blue informing them that they are finalists for this prestigious prize. The finalists will be invited to submit a proposal of what they will create if they are selected.

The jury convenes in person at the Hermitage in January to select the winner. (The runners-up are also offered Hermitage residencies.) The prize is formally presented at the Greenfield Prize dinner on March 27, 2011.

We must tell you, this is more fun, and more exciting than you can imagine. Stay tuned, we’ll keep you up to date with the process as it evolves. Want to know more about the Greenfield Prize? www.GreenfieldPrize.org