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What is the Herb Alpert Award?

The Herb Alpert Award in the Arts is an unrestricted prize of $75,000 given annually to risk-taking mid-career artists working in the fields of dance, film/video, music, theatre and the visual arts.

The prize was initiated and funded by the Herb Alpert Foundation and has been administered by California Institute of the Arts since 1994. The Herb Alpert Award honors and supports artists respected for their creativity, ingenuity, and bodies of work, at a moment in their lives when they are poised to propel their art in new and unpredictable directions. The Herb Alpert Award recognizes experimenters who are making something that matters within and beyond their field.

Announcements

2023 Herb Alpert Award Winners: Ayodele Casel, Makini (jumatatu m. poe) and Jermone Donte Beacham, Christopher Harris, Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich, Erin Gee, Linda May Han Oh, Tania El Khoury, Whitney White, American Artist, Park McArthur
Jul 19, 2023
Watch the Highlights of the 2023 Virtual Celebration The 2023 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts winners: DANCE: Ayodele Casel, Makini (jumatatu m. poe) and Jermone Donte Beacham FILM/VIDEO: Christopher Harris, Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich MUSIC: Erin Gee, Linda May Han Oh THEATRE: Tania El Khoury, Whitney White VISUAL ARTS: American Artist, Park McArthur
Apr 19, 2023
May 4, 2022 Watch the Highlights of the 2022 Virtual Celebration The 2022 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts winners DANCE: Yanira Castro, nia love FILM/VIDEO: Bani Khoshnoudi, Terence Nance MUSIC: Tomeka Reid, Cory Smythe THEATRE: Aleshea Harris, Virginia Grise VISUAL ARTS: Guadalupe Maravilla, Martine Syms
May 4, 2022
For the past 28 years, the Herb Alpert Foundation and the California Institute of the Arts have awarded $75,000 prizes to five artists in the fields of Music, Dance, Visual Arts, Theater and Film/Video. Twenty 22 is now the third year that the honor has gone to 10 artists, two in each category, in recognition of the burden the pandemic has placed on artists. Today, May 4, 2022, the winners of this year’s Herb Alpert Award in the Arts are to be officially announced.

2023 Panelists

Dance
Carla Peterson
Ali Rosa-Salas
Eva Yaa Asantewaa
director, Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography at Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL
curator, Vice President of Visual and Performing Arts, Abrons Arts Center; Associate Curator, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival
New York, NY
veteran independent arts writer, podcaster, editor, curator, dramaturge; founding Director of Black Diaspora
New York, NY
Film/Video
Dessane Lopez Cassell
Bill Morrison
Richard Peña
writer and curator; Editor-in-Chief, Seen journal (BlackStar Projects)
Brooklyn, NY
filmmaker, Herb Alpert Award Artist
New York, NY
Professor of Professional Practice (Film), Columbia University and Director Emeritus of the New York Film Festival
New York, NY
Music
Derek Bermel
Nicole Mitchell
Pamela Z
composer, clarinetist, Herb Alpert Award Artist
Brooklyn, NY
composer/improvisor, Herb Alpert Award Artist
Henderson, NC
composer/performer, Herb Alpert Award Artist
San Francisco, CA
Theatre
Emilya Cachapero
Gideon Lester
Avery Willis Hoffman
Director of Grantmaking Programs, Theatre Communications Group and arts consultant
New York, NY
artistic director and chief executive, Fisher Center, Bard College and senior curator, Open Society University Network’s Center for the Arts and Human Rights
Annandale-on-Hudson and Brooklyn, NY
artistic director, Brown Arts Institute and Professor of the Practice, Brown University
Providence, RI
Visual Arts
Nana Adusei Poku
Jessica Hong
Joan Simon
scholar, curator, Asst. Prof in African Diasporic Art History, Dept of History of Art, UC Berkeley
Berkeley, CA
curator and cultural worker; Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Toledo Museum of Art
Toledo, OH
independent curator, writer, arts administrator
Santa Monica, CA