Kennedy Center Honors

The Kennedy Center Honors have been awarded annually, since 1978 by the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The honorees are recognized for their lifetime contributions to American culture through the performing arts.

Nominations are made to the Board of Trustees by past honorees and members of the center's national artists committee. For the 2004 Honors, recommendations came from Dan Aykroyd, Christine Baranski, Angela Bassett, Joshua Bell, Adrien Brody, Dave Brubeck, Cy Coleman, Benicio Del Toro, Michael Douglas, Suzanne Farrell, Renee Fleming, Morgan Freeman, Rosemary Harris, Paloma Herrera, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Nathan Lane, Yo-Yo Ma, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Steven Spielberg, Meryl Streep and Pinchas Zukerman.

The awards are given at a United States Department of State dinner held the night before the annual Honors Gala at the Kennedy Center Opera House. A White House reception is also given in their honor.

The ceremony is recorded during the first weekend of December and is not telecast live. Edited versions are currently shown on PBS.

List of recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors

*2005 - Tony Bennett, Suzanne Farrell, Julie Harris, Robert Redford, and Tina Turner
*2004 - Warren Beatty, Ossie Davis & Ruby Dee, Elton John, Joan Sutherland, and John Williams
*2003 - James Brown, Carol Burnett, Loretta Lynn, Mike Nichols, and Itzhak Perlman
*2002 - James Earl Jones, James Levine, Chita Rivera, Paul Simon, and Elizabeth Taylor
*2001 - Julie Andrews, Van Cliburn, Quincy Jones, Jack Nicholson, and Luciano Pavarotti
*2000 - Mikhail Baryshnikov, Chuck Berry, Plácido Domingo, Clint Eastwood, and Angela Lansbury
*1999 - Victor Borge, Sean Connery, Judith Jamison, Jason Robards, and Stevie Wonder
*1998 - Bill Cosby, Fred Ebb & John Kander, Willie Nelson, André Previn, and Shirley Temple Black
*1997 - Lauren Bacall, Bob Dylan, Charlton Heston, Jessye Norman, and Edward Villella
*1996 - Edward Albee, Benny Carter, Johnny Cash, Jack Lemmon, and Maria Tallchief
*1995 - Jacques d'Amboise, Marilyn Horne, B.B. King, Sidney Poitier, and Neil Simon
*1994 - Kirk Douglas, Aretha Franklin, Morton Gould, Harold Prince, and Pete Seeger
*1993 - Johnny Carson, Arthur Mitchell, George Solti, Stephen Sondheim, and Marion Williams
*1992 - Lionel Hampton, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Ginger Rogers, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Paul Taylor
*1991 - Roy Acuff, Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Fayard Nicholas, Harold Nicholas, Gregory Peck, and Robert Shaw
*1990 - Dizzy Gillespie, Katharine Hepburn, Risë Stevens, Jule Styne, and Billy Wilder
*1989 - Harry Belafonte, Claudette Colbert, Alexandra Danilova, Mary Martin and William Schuman
*1988 - Alvin Ailey, George Burns, Myrna Loy, Alexander Schneider, Roger L. Stevens
*1987 - Perry Como, Bette Davis, Sammy Davis Jr, Nathan Milstein and Alwin Nikolais
*1986 - Lucille Ball, Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy, Yehudi Menuhin, Antony Tudor and Ray Charles
*1985 - Merce Cunningham, Irene Dunne, Bob Hope, Alan Jay Lerner & Frederick Loewe and Beverly Sills
*1984 - Lena Horne, Danny Kaye, Gian Carlo Menotti, Arthur Miller and Isaac Stern
*1983 - Katherine Dunham, Elia Kazan, Frank Sinatra, James Stewart and Virgil Thomson
*1982 - George Abbott, Lillian Gish, Benny Goodman, Gene Kelly and Eugene Ormandy
*1981 - Count Basie, Cary Grant, Helen Hayes, Jerome Robbins and Rudolf Serkin
*1980 - Leonard Bernstein, James Cagney, Agnes de Mille, Lynn Fontanne and Leontyne Price
*1979 - Aaron Copland, Ella Fitzgerald, Henry Fonda, Martha Graham and Tennessee Williams
*1978 - Marian Anderson, Fred Astaire, George Balanchine, Richard Rodgers and Arthur Rubinstein

External link

* The Kennedy Center Honors