The Oberlin Conservatory of Music Awarded 2009 National Medal of Arts

What an exciting time to be alumni of Oberlin!

From the press release:

The Oberlin Conservatory of Music Awarded
2009 National Medal of Arts

Honor Conferred by President Barack Obama in White House Ceremony on February 25

OBERLIN, OHIO (February 25, 2010)—The Oberlin Conservatory of Music is a recipient of the 2009 National Medal of Arts, the highest award given by the United States government to artists and arts patrons in recognition of the wealth and depth of their creative expressions. President Barack Obama is presenting the award to Dean of the Conservatory David H. Stull at a White House ceremony today in the East Room. Those in attendance include Oberlin College President Marvin Krislov, Robert Lemle, chair of Oberlin College's Board of Trustees, and trustee Stewart Kohl. A gala dinner celebrating the honorees took place at the National Museum of American History yesterday evening, sponsored by the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.

The Oberlin Conservatory of Music is the only professional music school to be so honored by President Obama. The other honorees for 2009 are: singer and songwriter Bob Dylan; director and actor Clint Eastwood; graphic designer Milton Glaser; architect and sculptor Maya Lin; singer, dancer, and actress Rita Moreno; soprano Jessye Norman; arts patron and design advocate Joseph P. Riley Jr.; painter and sculptor Frank Stella; conductor Michael Tilson Thomas; composer and conductor John Williams; and the School of American Ballet.

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) administrates the National Medal of Arts.

“These individuals and organizations show us how many ways art works every day. They represent the breadth and depth of American architecture, design, film, music, performance, theatre, and visual art,” says NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman. “This lifetime honor recognizes their exceptional contributions, and I join the President and the country in saluting them.”

Oberlin College President Marvin Krislov, who was appointed by President Obama to the National Council on the Humanities in 2009, says: “Being awarded the National Medal of Arts is a tremendous honor for the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. It is a great tribute to the conservatory’s faculty, staff, and students, past and present, whose relentless dedication to achieving excellence is the hallmark of music at Oberlin.”

Renowned internationally as a professional music school of the highest caliber, the Oberlin Conservatory of Music has been called a “national treasure” by the Washington Post. Established in 1865 as one of the two divisions of Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, the conservatory is America’s oldest continuously operating conservatory of music and is the only major music school in the U.S. devoted primarily to the education of undergraduate musicians.

“This is an extraordinary moment in the history of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music,” says Dean Stull. “It is directly attributable to the brilliant work undertaken by generations of faculty, students, and alumni since our founding more than 140 years ago. We should all take great pride in receiving the highest honor in the land for artistic excellence and achievement. I offer my deepest gratitude to President Obama for his recognition of Oberlin, and for including us in his first group of honorees to receive the National Medal of Arts.”

ABOUT THE NATIONAL MEDAL OF ARTS
The National Medal of Arts is designed to honor exemplary individuals and organizations that have encouraged the arts in America and offered inspiration to others through their distinguished achievement, support, or patronage. Unlike other awards, it is not limited to a single field or area of artistic endeavor. Congress established the award in 1984 to honor “individuals or groups who, in the President’s judgment, are deserving of special recognition by reason of their outstanding contributions to the excellence, growth, support, and availability of the arts in the United States.” The National Council on the Arts is responsible for making recommendations to the President of worthy individuals and organizations to receive the medal, which was designed by internationally renowned sculptor Robert Graham (1938-2008), who created the Olympic Gateway for the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. The Robert Graham Studio, located in Venice, California, produces the medals.

Past recipients of the National Medal of Arts include actors, architects, artists, art historians, arts patrons, choreographers and dancers, composers, musicians, poets and writers, ensembles, arts organizations, and schools. The pantheon of individuals and groups honored with the award include, among others, the actors Jessica Tandy, Julie Harris, and James Earl Jones; artists Georgia O’Keefe, Romare Bearden, and Willem de Kooning; composers Elliott Carter Jr. and Aaron Copland; composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim; dancers and choreographers Martha Graham, Jerome Robbins, and Merce Cunningham; musicians Dave Brubeck, Dizzy Gillespie, Wynton Marsalis, Rudolf Serkin, and Isaac Stern; singers Ella Fitzgerald, Marilyn Horne (Distinguished Visiting Professor of Voice at Oberlin), and Barbra Streisand; writers Saul Bellow, Eudora Welty, and John Updike; National Public Radio, and, this year, the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.