George Clooney tops dumb Kennedy list

George Clooney tops dumb Kennedy list

News

norman lebrecht

July 21, 2022

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The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts today announced the selection of five Honorees who will receive the 45th Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime artistic achievements. Recipients to be honored at the annual national celebration of the arts in Washington, D.C. are: acclaimed actor and filmmaker George Clooney; contemporary Christian and pop singer-songwriter Amy Grant; the legendary singer of soul, Gospel, R&B, and pop Gladys Knight; Cuban-born American composer, conductor, and educator Tania León; and iconic Irish rock band U2, comprised of band members Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr.

Comments

  • Tiredofitall says:

    The Kennedy Center Honors has really dumbed itself down.

  • MacroV says:

    I like George Clooney but it seems a little early. U2 is a great band what have they contributed to AMERICAN arts and culture? Gladys Knight and Tania Leon are good choices.

    But where, oh where, are the Smothers Brothers?

  • Mock Mahler says:

    It’s all about the television audience–an approach that hasn’t been working, though they don’t seem to have noticed. Next year: Kardashians!

  • George says:

    Tania León is certainly an important composer, if a little over-feted of late. U2 doesn’t need the recognition. Amy Grant sounds like pandering to the religious conservatives.

    • Alexander Graham Cracker says:

      Grant hasn’t been a big deal to religious conservatives since she divorced and remarried over twenty years ago.

  • Tired of the BS says:

    Don’t you self righteous lemmings realize the KC Honors is a huge and necessary cash cow for the center to operate? Get over yourselves. None of you watch the broadcast on CBS anyway.

    • Tiredofitall says:

      That’s very true. I’ve only ever watched the good bits on Youtube after the fact. (Among the most memorable was Aretha Franklin’s surprise appearance a few years ago…absolute magic.)

    • Tiredofitall says:

      BTW, I wouldn’t refer to others as self-righteous if I were you…

    • MMcGrath says:

      Thanks. Well said. It’s a grand evening. And the list is always debatable. So what?

      • Violinophile says:

        Here’s “so what”. In an age when popular culture in general increasingly dominates and eclipses all other
        more serious, more thoughtful, more probing, challenging, distinctive, moving, and artistically elevated categories of expression, the Kennedy Honors were originally conceived to expose the audience to a tiny little wormhole into that vast, parallel, greater realm. It has long fallen into a pedestrian parody of that, and sadly is mostly a waste of a rare chance to give a spotlight to that higher vision. There are simply so many who need and deserve the exposure more than many they choose. Not that these are awful, just not in many cases truly the most worthy and special.

  • V.Lind says:

    All these people appear to be highly accomplished in their own fields, so to call it a “dumb” list is just egregiously insulting to anyone whose chosen path is not the writer’s. Classical music is one of several genres of performing arts that has been overlooked this year: ballet, jazz, folk music, legitimate and musical theatre have also all been ignored.

  • Alank says:

    I guess they ran out of western art music performers who could meet their woke criteria. The KC Honors has been dumbed down for years. The KC CEO is assiduously working to convert the venue into another commercial outlet for pop entertainment supplemented by performances that emote feelings of social justice.

    • MMcGrath says:

      Hey, if you are a federal grant recipient or a federal expense line item – the KC is both – you follow the rules. Get real.

    • Krunoslav says:

      How is Tania Léon, a classical composer/conductor who writes symphonic music, opera and chamber music, a figure apart from “Western art”? Because she’s Cuban? Because she’s a “she”?

      The best thing about all the aggrieved and often ignorant ‘anti-woke’ comments on this site is that they prove how necessary a degree of wokeness remains!

  • MR says:

    The most egregious omission in recent memory was not honoring Lee Konitz in this fashion, given how he was one of the major architects of modern jazz. Similarly, when he passed, no mention was made in the New Yorker, or the primary jazz writer for The NY Times, all intellectual and historical failings displaying an unfortunate ignorance of the meaning and significance of a monumental art form forged in America.
    http://azuremilesrecords.com/leekonitzinterview.html

    • MR says:

      Lee Konitz did make it to Washington, D.C for something else – to show support for a friend who was having a preview a while back. In fact, his friend said one of the songs to be performed was inspired by Lee. The friend was Leonard Bernstein, the preview was for West Side Story, and the song was “Cool”. More so, the generalized “jazz” influence attributed to West Side Story is more specifically the jazz style of Lee Konitz. During intermission, Lenny rushed into the lobby to ask Lee, “What do you think?” The D.C. preview preceded the Broadway opening.
      http://azuremilesrecords.com/leeandleonardkonitzfiguresinbernsteingswestsidestory.html

  • James Weiss says:

    In 1978, the first honorees were Marion Anderson, Fred Astaire, Artur Rubinstein, George Balanchine, and Richard Rodgers. You can’t convince me that 2022 honorees are even close to that class.

    • MMcGrath says:

      True. But by having multiple annual awards you run into this problem. Same with piano and vocal competitions. Results become fluffy and political.

    • Violinophile says:

      Maybe we can get PBS to do an alternate honors show in the spirit of the older Kennedy shows. Perhaps the “Disney Center Honors”? Get a solid group of distinguished people to make the choices. And stick to Americans. We have more than enough.

  • TNVol says:

    The list gets worse EVERY year. Making millions off the backs of Guatemalan child labor in the Nestle coffee fields now gets you a Kennedy Center Honor. Maybe they’ll bus in some of those kids to sing for him too.

  • Frank Flambeau says:

    Please spell out why you think this is “dumb”. All of these people seem worthy of honors.

  • PaulD says:

    Read this and compare:

    1981 – Count Basie, Cary Grant, Helen Hayes, Jerome Robbins, and Rudolf Serkin

  • Track 370 says:

    There are so many people more deserving. Ever since George Stevens left -and not by choice – these awards have become a joke!

  • leo grinhauz says:

    awards are for horses

  • Richard Zencker says:

    If we insist on abbreviating is as KC, the honors should go to King Crimson.

  • KCB says:

    Alas, the “KC” cannot go to Karen Carpenter … or Kurt Cobain.

    What about Kristin Chenoweth? Surely worthy, but too early, I suppose.

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