Wayne Shorter, Kris Davis and Danilo Pérez are the jazz performers chosen as 2021 Doris Duke Artists, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation announced Thursday (Oct. 21).
To accompany the award, $275,000 will be granted to each of the artists for “for their ongoing innovation and impact in the field of jazz,” the foundation shared in a statement.
Cynthia Oliver and Dormeshia are recipients in the dance category. Lileana Blain-Cruz and Teo Castellanos were cited in the theater category.
These seven artists received the title and cash grant as “an investment in their artistic potential and celebration of their ongoing contributions to the fields of contemporary dance, jazz and theater,” according to the foundation.
Saxophonist and composer Shorter has won 11 Grammy Awards, including best contemporary jazz album for High Life in 1997. In 2015, the artist, now 88, received a lifetime achievement award from the Recording Academy.
Panamanian pianist and composer Pérez, 55, has three Grammy wins, including best jazz vocal album for Secrets Are The Best Stories in 2020.
Canadian pianist and composer Davis, who is in her early 40s, has yet to be nominated for a Grammy, but has been critically praised by both NPR and The New York Times for her 2019 album Diatom Ribbons.
“Art is the antidote to crisis,” said Sam Gill, president/CEO of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. “These exemplary artists demonstrate that a time of unprecedented disruption in the arts and across society cannot stifle the power of great art to persevere.”
Since launching in 2012, the Doris Duke Artists Awards have given more than $35.4 million to 129 artists to support their craft and artistic contributions to their respective fields.
The foundation is named after tobacco billionaire heiress Doris Duke, who was — among other things — an art collector and philanthropist. She died at 80 in 1993.
To learn more about the foundation, visit their website at ddcf.org.