|
WASHINGTON, DC, December 5, 2024. The Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP) is proud to announce the names of seven outstanding individuals who will receive APAP Honors Awards in New York on Monday, January 13, 2025.
For more than six decades, the coveted APAP Honors have celebrated and recognized trailblazers and visionaries of the performing arts field. The Honors will be presented as part of a breakfast awards ceremony at the New York Hilton Midtown from 9:30 a.m.- 11:30 a.m. during the annual APAP|NYC conference (apapnyc.org) that runs from January 10-14.
This year’s honorees are art-rock vocalist, composer, technologist, and multi-disciplinary artist Nona Hendryx; visionary and influential performing arts leader Pamela Tatge; classical music innovator and transformational educator Afa Dworkin; native arts advocate Lulani Arquette; performing arts fundraising and strategy pioneers Halsey and Alice North; and genre-bending programmer Terell Johnson. Halsey North, who died in 2022, will be awarded posthumously.
“It is a privilege to celebrate this year’s APAP Honors awardees as each represents the highest standards for that which they are being awarded.” remarked APAP President and CEO Lisa Richards Toney. “Together, they represent a diverse group of industry excellence and promise. Now is the time to stand boldly in honoring our own—our performing arts professionals who bring wonderment, strength, and wisdom to the field and its future.”
During The APAP Honors ceremony, the North American Performing Arts Managers and Agents (NAPAMA) and the Creative and Independent Producer Alliance (CIPA) will also celebrate their own awardees. NAPAMA will award the NAPAMA Award for Excellence in Presenting the Performing Arts and the NAPAMA Liz Silverstein Agent-Manager of the Year Award. CIPA will award the CIPA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Creative Producing. The winner of APAP’s Halsey and Alice North Board Alumni Award (to be announced in an earlier ceremony at APAP|NYC) will also be recognized.
Nona Hendryx will receive the Award of Merit for achievement in the performing arts.
Nona Hendryx is an art-rock Vocalist, Composer, Technologist and Multidisciplinary Artist whose career spans decades of sound & style evolution. She is a founding member of the Rock, Gospel, R&B Afrofuturistic group Labelle, responsible for the No.1 hit 'Lady Marmalade' ("Voulez Vous Coucher Avec Moi C'est Soir?”) and she currently holds the post of Ambassador for Artistry in Music for Berklee College/Boston Conservatory. Her audio-visual productions, inspired by Afrofuturism, have been presented by The Metropolitan Museum, Mass MOCA, MOMA, Park Avenue Armory, Moog Fest, Miami Basel, London’s Serpentine Gallery and Somerset House. Her groundbreaking project, The Dream Machine Experience, a music driven Mixed Reality installation combining AI, AR and VR applications, was presented at Lincoln Center, NY in Summer 2024. Nona is passionate about Music, Visual Art, and Technology and continues to be a prolific artist.
Pamela Tatge will receive the Fan Taylor Distinguished Service Award for exemplary service to the field of professional presenting.
Pamela Tatge is the Executive & Artistic Director of Jacob’s Pillow, an international dance Festival, School, and Archives located in Western Massachusetts. There she has developed the Pillow Lab, an incubator of new work; enhanced the Pillow’s civic leadership and engagement; and renewed campus facilities. Following the pandemic and the destruction of the Doris Duke Theatre due to a tragic fire, Tatge is leading a campaign to build a new theater for the future of dance that will open in July of 2025. For nearly 17 years, Tatge served as the Director of the Center for the Arts at Wesleyan University, Tatge has received APAP’s Dawson Award for Programmatic Excellence and Sustained Achievement in Programming, Limón Dance Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award and NAACP Berkshires Dunham Freedom Fund Award among other awards.
Afa S. Dworkin will receive the William Dawson Award for Programmatic Excellence and sustained achievement in programming.
Afa S. Dworkin serves as the President & Artistic Director of the Sphinx Organization, the global organization with the mission of transforming lives through the power of the arts. Recognized as one of Musical America’s Top 30 Influencers, Kennedy Center Human Spirit honoree, and National Advocate Award recipient, Afa is committed to fostering inclusive artistic excellence and evolving the American concert music canon through her work with Sphinx's four touring ensembles and annual programming spanning youth education to leadership development on and off stage. A classically trained violinist, she holds degrees from the University of Michigan and helps to nurture the next generation of leaders through her teaching posts at her alma mater and the Cleveland Institute of Music. Her visionary leadership has transformed Sphinx into a global movement, shaping a future where the arts reflect the rich mosaic that is our society.
Lulani Arquette will receive the Sidney R. Yates Advocacy Award for outstanding advocacy on behalf of the performing arts.
Lulani Arquette is the Honorable Past President and CEO of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation (NACF). A national organization established in 2009, NACF is dedicated to advancing arts and cultural expression that helps strengthen American Indian, Native Hawaiian, and Alaska Native artists and organizations. Under Arquette’s tenure, NACF provided $15M of professional, direct support to over 500 artists and organizations. In collaboration with NEA and NEH, she co-hosted the first ever national convening of Indigenous arts and cultures with numerous public agencies in DC.
Lulani received the 2021 Berresford Prize from United States Artists, an award that honors cultural leaders who have contributed significantly to the advancement, wellbeing, and care of artists in society. Through her passion and dedication, Arquette facilitated the “landback” transfer of a 40,000 sq. ft. historic building in Portland, Oregon that is being transformed into the Center for Native Arts and Cultures, a vibrant artist maker, exhibiting and presenting space.
Halsey and Alice North will receive the Arts Champion Award, which recognizes those who through their generosity and leadership, inspire others to support the performing arts. Halsey North (1947-2022) will be awarded posthumously.
Halsey and Alice met as undergraduates at Earlham College and married on December 31, 1971. Halsey had just received his MBA in performing arts management, becoming the first person in the United States to receive such a degree. They started their careers in North Carolina. Alice earned her MBA in finance and was a corporate banker. Halsey led the North Carolina Arts Council in Raleigh, fundraising for the state and allocating money to local arts agencies. He then headed the Arts & Science Council of Charlotte, leading a renaissance of the arts and a revitalization of downtown. He was an early advocate of utilizing new performing arts centers and historic theaters to be core engines for the redevelopment of urban centers. They learned about APAP and Halsey became a board member and Treasurer. Alice’s job moved them to New York City in 1979.
In 1987, Halsey and Alice co-founded The North Group Inc. to work together in projects that advanced their interest in supporting new performing arts centers and historic theaters. As a team, they provided fundraising, strategic planning, and board development counsel for over 200 nonprofit art organizations across the United States. Notable relationships include multi-year engagements with the National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, DC; Maui Arts & Cultural Center, Kahului, HI; Wolf Trap Foundation for the Arts, Vienna, VA; Great Lakes Theater/Hanna Theatre project, Cleveland, OH; Proctors, Schenectady, NY; Michigan Theater, Ann Arbor, MI; Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline, MA; Tampa Theatre, Tampa, FL; and Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Fort Lauderdale, FL. Together, Halsey and Alice raised hundreds of millions of dollars in ways that energized those involved, gave confidence and experience to new generations of leaders, and elevated a community’s sense of what it was capable of accomplishing. Halsey and Alice, for example, guided the fundraising for the Walton Arts Center in Fayetteville, AR, in a way that helped lead to region-wide planning and the realization of a Northwest Arkansas national airport.
Terell Johnson will receive the Spark of Change Award, which honors an emergent individual under the age of 40 or group less than 15 years in existence, who demonstrates trail-blazing innovation and vision in the presenting, creative producing, booking and touring field.
Terell Johnson, Executive Director of the Chicago Philharmonic and Crain’s 40 Under 40 Awardee, is a leading figure in Chicago’s performing arts scene.
Johnson serves on the Board of the Illinois Council of Orchestras and as Co-Chair for the Harris Theater Committee on Resident Companies. He was selected to join other elite Black and Latinx leaders as a member of Sphinx LEAD, a 2-year program evolving the classical music industry by empowering executive leaders.
Since joining the Chicago Philharmonic in 2021, Johnson has reimagined the symphonic concert experience with a series of inclusive, genre-bending events. Recent successes include the Philharmonic’s Lollapalooza debut with Laufey as the first orchestra to perform at the iconic festival to 100,000+ listeners, and the orchestra’s debut at Carnegie Hall as the finale of its sold-out world premiere tour An Evening with Sleeping At Last.
A full description of the awards criterion and a list of previous recipients can be found here.
APAP members were invited to nominate artists, agents, managers, presenters, producers, organizations, supporters, and other arts professionals whose hard work, dedication and vision have contributed to the strength, impact, and resilience of the performing arts industry. Awards are voted on by a committee comprised of long-time APAP members and other luminaries from the performing arts world.
The APAP Honors is sponsored by IMG Artists (imgartists.com)
About the Association of Performing Arts Professionals (APAP)
APAP, the Association of Performing Arts Professionals, is the national service, advocacy and membership organization dedicated to developing and supporting a robust, performing arts presenting, booking, and touring field and the professionals who work within it. Our 1,700 national and international members represent leading performing arts centers, artist agencies, managers, touring companies, and performing artists. APAP is the producer of the annual APAP|NYC conference (apapnyc.org)—the world’s leading gathering and marketplace for the performing arts—and is an industry leader, providing year-round resources, programming, and services.
APAP|NYC is a founding partner of JanArtsNYC, the annual convergence of world-class public festivals and innovative industry gatherings taking place throughout the month of January at various NYC venues, supported by the NYC Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment.
# # #
| 
