Grammy-winning jazz artists Esperanza Spalding and Miguel Zenón are among six recipients of the 2024 Doris Duke Artist Awards. This honor comes with a significant monetary reward. Each of the six honorees is being awarded $525,000 in unrestricted funds and up to $25,000 in retirement funds. It’s billed as the largest prize in the U.S. specifically dedicated to individual performing artists.
The Doris Duke Artist Award, established in 2012, recognizes artists for their record of achievement within the disciplines of contemporary dance, jazz and theater. This year’s four other honorees are Nataki Garrett and Chay Yew (both from theater) and Shamel Pitts and Acosia Red Elk (both from dance).
The unrestricted nature of the award allows artists to use the funds for either personal or professional needs and enjoy the freedom to pursue projects of their choosing. Last year, the foundation doubled the amount of the award. Including the 2024 recipients, the foundation to date has provided 135 artists with $38.8 million through the Doris Duke Artist Award program.
On Friday April 26, the Doris Duke Foundation will host a symposium in New York about the future of the performing arts entitled Creative Labor, Creative Conditions: A Symposium and Celebration of the Doris Duke Artist Awards. The foundation will also inaugurate an annual retreat for Doris Duke Artist awardees at Duke Farms, its 2,700-acre environmental center. This year’s retreat runs from April 29 to May 2.
Spalding, 39, has won five Grammys. The bassist and singer famously won best new artist in 2011, prevailing over a red-hot field that also included Justin Bieber, Drake, Florence + the Machine and Mumford and Sons. She has since won three Grammys for best jazz vocal album for Radio Music Society, 12 Little Spells and Songwrights Apothecary Lab and one for arrangement accompanying vocalist(s) for “City of Roses.”
Zenón, 47, won his first Grammy this year for best Latin jazz album for El Arte del Bolero, Vol. 2, a collab with Luis Perdomo. The alto saxophonist had previously gone 0-11 at the Grammys, so this year’s win was a breakthrough.
Duke, a tobacco heiress, socialite and philanthropist, died in 1993 at age 80. Her philanthropic work in AIDS research, medicine, and child welfare continued into her old age. Her estimated $1.3 billion fortune was largely left to charity.
The Doris Duke Foundation is one of only two foundations to have received the National Medal of the Arts from the National Endowment for the Arts. The foundation’s mission “is to build a more creative, equitable and sustainable future by investing in artists and the performing arts, environmental conservation, medical research, child well-being and greater mutual understanding among diverse communities,” according to a statement. Visit www.dorisduke.org to learn more.
