Gaudium Award 2014

This year's honorees include:

  • Carmen de Lavallade

    Carmen de Lavallade

    Born and raised in Los Angeles, Carmen de Lavallade, while still in her teens, received a scholarship to study dance with Lester Horton, who was making that city a center of modern dance. Carmen became his lead dancer until she departed to dance with Alvin Ailey. Like most of Horton’s students, she also studied art, painting, set design and costuming. Additionally, she studied ballet and acting. Lena Horne introduced de Lavallade to 20th Century Fox Studios and she appeared in four films, notably Carmen Jones. In 1955, Carmen made her Broadway debut with Alvin Ailey in Truman Capote’s House of Flowers. That year, she married another Flowers cast member, dancer Geoffrey Holder, forming a creative partnership and marriage which has endured until his recent death. Following the success of her signature solo, Come Sunday, choreographed with Mr. Holder, Carmen became the prima ballerina at The Metropolitan Opera. She went on to appear on television and in off-Broadway productions. She toured internationally with Alvin Ailey as a guest principal. As part of the Yale School of Drama and later Yale Repertory, she became both a professor and performer. She has received many awards including Black History Month Lifetime Achievement and an honorary Doctorate from the Juilliard School.

  • Karen Brooks Hopkins

    Karen Brooks Hopkins

    A presence at the the Brooklyn Academy of Music since 1979, Karen Brooks Hopkins is now its highly successful President. She oversees all of the Academy’s 300 full and part time employees and facilities. A resident of Park Slope, Brooklyn, she is a graduate of the University of Maryland and holds an MFA from the University of Washington, D.C. The author of a widely read and referenced book, Successful Fundraising for Arts and Cultural Organizations, Ms. Hopkins has overseen and attracted enviable growth and financial support internationally. Her vigorous style has forged BAM into a sought after and respected major arts complex worldwide. Her creative approach to administration has resulted in prestigious awards presented to her from the governments of Denmark, Sweden and France. Karen Hopkins has been involved in many aspects of the cultural life of the City and State of New York. She has served on public and private boards and committees in both leadership and consultative capacities. Additionally, she has taught arts administration at Brooklyn College and was granted an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters by Saint Francis College, Brooklyn. Named by Crain’s as one of the 100 Most influential Women in New York City Business, she is concluding her Presidency at BAM in 2015 leaving that institution thoroughly enhanced by her forceful, effective leadership.

  • James Martin

    James Martin

    A native of Pennsylvania, James Martin is a priest member of the Society of Jesus. In 1982, he graduated from the Wharton School of Business with a B.S. in Economics. He worked in the world of corporate finance until 1988. He then began his Jesuit novitiate. His years of preparation for ordination included hospital work with the seriously ill, hospice care with the Missionaries of Charity, outreach programs to street-gangs and the unemployed, business projects with East African refugees and an associate editorship with America magazine. He received two Master’s degrees from the then Weston Jesuit School of Theology, while also serving as a prison chaplain. Ordained a Catholic priest in 1999, Father Martin has authored several popular books: A Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, My Life with the Saints and most recently, Jesus: A Pilgrimage. He has become well known as the “Chaplain” to the Colbert Report as a visiting “religious” topics guest on Stephen Colbert’s Emmy award winning comedy program. He is now Editor-at-Large at America magazine and the recipient of several honorary doctoral degrees. He is sought out regularly by the media, schools and church groups as a celebrated speaker and often quoted social-religious commentator.

  • Jonathan Schwartz

    Jonathan Schwartz

    Native New Yorker, Jonathan Schwartz is acknowledged as the premier expert on what is called The Great American Songbook. Since 1967, Mr. Schwartz has been THE voice on radio celebrating the best of American songwriting and performing. He is currently heard twice weekly on WNYCFM. Not limited to radio, Jonathan was for four years the artistic director of Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series and appeared as the music correspondent on NBC’s Sunday Today Show. He has been a monthly columnist for GQ Magazine and a weekly columnist for the Village Voice. Mr. Schwartz is also a singer and has performed hundreds of shows in New York cabaret venues releasing three vocal CDs. He received a Grammy in 1986 for the Best Album Notes for The Voice-The Columbia Years (1943-1952). His knowledge of the Sinatra recording canon is legendary, impressing even Mr. Sinatra himself. A champion of new singers and songwriters, the Jonathan Channel, launched in 2013, is a streaming 24/7 internet radio station featuring Schwartz’s programming. Besides his well received memoir, All in Good Time, he has authored short stories, novels and a stirring account of 1978 playoff game of his beloved Boston Red Sox

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