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Fort Worth, Texas, March 1,
2011---President Barack Obama will honor
pianist Van Cliburn with the National
Medal of Arts tomorrow afternoon in a ceremony at the
White House. The National Medal of Arts is the highest honor given
to artists and art patrons by the United States Government and
acknowledges the extraordinary lifetime achievements of those
individuals who have made a lasting impact on the country's
cultural landscape. The award is presented by the President to
those who have exhibited a commitment to the excellence, growth,
and availability of the arts in the U.S.
Mr. Cliburn receives the award alongside Robert Brustein, Mark
di Suvero, Donald Hall, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Quincy
Jones, Harper Lee, Sonny Rollins, Meryl Streep, and James
Taylor.
For Mr. Cliburn, the award recognizes his lifelong mission of
effectuating cultural diplomacy through classical music. He rose to
worldwide fame following his historic victory at the First
International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958. With his
top-prize win in the USSR at the height of the Cold War, Mr.
Cliburn tore down cultural barriers years before glasnost and
perestroika, underscoring the universality of classical music and
its ability to transcend political and cultural boundaries. He has
toured widely and frequently, performing with every major conductor
and orchestra in all of the most important international concert
halls. He has performed for royalty and heads of state in Europe,
Asia, and South America, and has been invited to the White House
under every President since Harry Truman.
In addition to his remarkable performing career, the education
and encouragement of young artists has remained a primary interest
to Mr. Cliburn. In 1962, the First Van Cliburn International Piano
Competition was held in his honor and continues as a living legacy
to his commitment to aiding the development of young pianists. He
has endowed scholarship programs at many schools and universities
including the Juilliard School, Cincinnati Conservatory, Texas
Christian University, Louisiana State University, the Franz Liszt
Academy in Budapest, Hungary, and at the Moscow and St. Petersburg
Conservatories. He has served on the Board of Trustees for the
Interlochen Arts Academy in Interlochen, Michigan, and established
scholarships there as well.
Mr. Cliburn is the recipient of more than 20 honorary doctorate
degrees from universities around the world. He has received the
Kennedy Center Honors and the Grammy® Lifetime Achievement Award.
In July 2003, President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential
Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian award, and in 2004,
during a ceremony at the Kremlin, Cliburn received the Order of
Friendship from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
VAN CLIBURN FOUNDATION
The Van Cliburn Foundation disseminates classical music worldwide,
and launches and nurtures young artists' careers through the
quadrennial Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, the
ensuing three-year international concert tours of its medalists,
award-winning documentaries, and a syndicated radio series
dedicated to the competition and its most memorable performances.
By making the competition available in its entirety on the
Internet, the Foundation has extended its outreach to listeners in
every corner of the globe.
For audiences in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, the Van
Cliburn Foundation promotes great music and world-class artists
through the annual Cliburn Concerts series. It reaches over 30,000
elementary school students annually with the education programs of
Musical Awakenings®. In 1999, it established the
International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs, which
The Boston Globe proclaimed "a celebration of music, and
the people who have to make music, no matter what." The sixth
Amateur Competition will be held May 23-29, 2011 at Ed Landreth
Auditorium on the campus of TCU.
Visit Cliburn.org to learn more about the Cliburn as it
approaches the 50th anniversary of the First Van Cliburn
International Piano Competition in 1962.
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