Selection Committee
Jane Alexander, Chairperson
Stage, film and television actress Jane Alexander made her Broadway debut in The Great White Hope and has since won, or been nominated for, nearly every major award in her field. Her Broadway credits include The Sisters Rosensweig (1993) and Honour (1998), while her films include All the President’s Men (1976), Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) and Testament (1985), among others. From 1993-1997 she served as Chairman for the National Endowment for the Arts, appointed by President Bill Clinton, and today she continues to serve on the boards of arts, environment and wildlife conservation organizations.
Vishakha Desai
Since 2004, Vishakha Desai has served as the President and CEO of Asia Society, a leading global organization committed to strengthening partnerships among the people, leaders, and institutions of Asia and the United States. She previously served as the Society’s first Director of its Museum, and then as Vice President for Arts and Cultural Programs and as Senior Vice President. Before joining Asia Society in 1990, she was a curator at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the head of Public Programs and Academic Affairs. Vishakha is the recipient of numerous grants, fellowships and awards including the Gold Medal from the National Institute of Social Sciences, among others. She currently serves on the boards of The Brookings Institution, Citizens Committee for New York City, Bertelsmann Foundation (USA), Asian University for Women and the New York City Mayor’s Advisory Commission for Cultural Affairs.
Elizabeth Diller
Elizabeth Diller is a founding principal of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, a 70 person interdisciplinary design studio that integrates architecture, the visual arts, and the performing arts. In 1999-2004, the MacArthur Foundation presented Ms. Diller and Mr. Scofidio with the ‘genius’ award for their commitment to integrating architecture with issues of contemporary culture. Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s projects include The Juilliard School and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the High Line in New York, Brown University’s Creative Arts Center, the Museum of Image and Sound in Rio de Janeiro, and the recently awarded Broad Museum and Columbia University Business School.
Garth Fagan
Garth Fagan is the founder and artistic director of the award-winning and internationally acclaimed Garth Fagan Dance, now celebrating its 40th Anniversary season. Garth’s distinctive dance vocabulary draws on many sources: sense of weight in modern dance, torso-centered movement and energy of Afro-Caribbean, speed and precision of ballet, and the rule breaking experimentation of the post-moderns. He received the prestigious 1998 Tony Award for Best Choreography for Walt Disney’s The Lion King, as well as Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Laurence Olivier Awards, among others. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the prestigious three-year Choreography Fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts, and a Bessie Award for Sustained Achievement.
Vijay Iyer
Grammy-nominated composer-pianist Vijay Iyer was voted the 2010 Musician of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association and named one of the “50 Most Influential Global Indians” by GQ India. He has released fifteen albums as a leader, most recently Tirtha (2011), Solo (2010), and the multiple-award-winning Historicity (2009), which features the Vijay Iyer Trio and was named #1 Jazz Album of the Year in The New York Times, The
Los Angeles Times, and numerous other publications. Vijay has collaborated with Steve Coleman, Wadada Leo Smith, and John Zorn; filmmakers Haile Gerima and Bill Morrison; choreographer Karole Armitage; and poets Mike Ladd and Robert Pinsky, among others. He is the recipient of the Alpert Award in the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and numerous composer commissions.
