{"id":277341,"date":"2016-08-22T12:15:27","date_gmt":"2016-08-22T16:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newmusicbox.org\/?p=36973"},"modified":"2022-01-13T17:46:53","modified_gmt":"2022-01-13T22:46:53","slug":"wadada-leo-smith-receives-25k-mohn-career-achievement-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmusicusa.org\/nmbx\/wadada-leo-smith-receives-25k-mohn-career-achievement-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Wadada Leo Smith Receives $25K Mohn Career Achievement Award"},"content":{"rendered":"

Composer and trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith has received the Hammer Museum\u2019s 2016 Mohn Award for Career Achievement \u201chonoring brilliance and resilience.\u201d\u00a0The $25,000 Award was announced by the museum on August 16 and presented in conjunction with the exhibition Made in L.A. 2016: a, the, through, only<\/em>, organized by Hammer curator Adam Moshayedi and Hamza Walker, director of education and associate curator, Renaissance Society.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe jury wants to acknowledge Wadada Leo Smith\u2019s outstanding achievements as a musician, his influential work as a teacher and a mentor for younger artists in Los Angeles, and the decades-long expansion of an inventive, complex and layered system of notation simultaneously interrogating the pictoral and the performative,\u201d stated Juse Luis Blondet, curator, Special Initiatives, Los Angeles County Museum of Art.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so honored to have won this award,\u201d said Smith.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m so happy that my scores are being viewed as works of art.\u00a0 That means the world to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith, who turns 75 in December 2016, recently received a 2016 Doris Duke Artist Award and received an honorary doctorate from CalArts, where he was honored as Faculty Emeritus. He maintains an active touring and recording schedule. His latest epic recording America\u2019s National Parks<\/em>\u2014a six-movement suite inspired by the scenic splendor, historic legacy, and political controversies of our nation\u2019s public landscapes and featuring pianist Anthony Davis, bassist John Lindberg, drummer Pheeroan akLaff, and cellist Ashley Walters\u2014will be released October 14, 2016 on Cuneiform Records.\u00a0 Later this year, TUM Records will release Wadada Leo Smith: Nagwa<\/em> featuring Smith with guitarists Michael Gregory Jackson, Henry Kaiser, Brandon Ross and Lamar Smith, plus Bill Laswell on electric bass, Pheeroan akLaff on drums, and Adam Rudolph on percussion. Coming on TUM in early 2017 will be Alone: Reflections and Meditations on Monk<\/em>, a solo recording by Smith.\u00a0Smith\u2019s 2016 schedule includes performances at the Montreal International Jazz Festival, Berlin Jazz Festival, Molde Jazz Festival, Pittsburgh International LiveJazz Festival, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Vision Festival, Festival Suoni Per il Pipolo, Summer Stage, NYC and the premiere of his opera \/cantata Rosa Parks<\/em> at the FONT Festival.<\/p>\n

In May 2012, an extensive conversation with Wadada Leo Smith was published on NewMusicBox. The entire transcript of the conversation is available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n