May

 

 

MARIN ALSOP ELECTED TO AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS & SCIENCES

ONE OF THE NATION’S OLDEST HONORARY SOCIETIES, FOUNDED IN 1780, COUNTS BALTIMORE SYMPHONY MUSIC DIRECTOR ALSOP AMONG ITS NEWEST MEMBERS, ALONG WITH THE FILM-MAKING COEN BROTHERS, B. B. KING, SUPREME COURT JUSTICE JOHN PAUL STEVENS, DAWN UPSHAW, AND 206 OTHERS FROM THE U.S. AND ABROAD

Marin Alsop’s newest honor is membership in one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, founded in 1780 by John Adams, John Hancock, and other notables and scholars.

New members of the Academy are chosen from the sciences, the arts and humanities, business, public affairs, and the nonprofit sector; are leaders in their fields; and include Nobel laureates and recipients of Pulitzer and Pritzker prizes, Academy and Grammy awards, and Kennedy Center Honors.

Marin Alsop, the only conductor on the list, began her tenure as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra this season, and has been principal conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in England for the last ten years.

The Academy’s “2008 class” of scholars, scientists, artists, and civic, corporate, and philanthropic leaders come from 20 states and 15 countries, and range in age from 37 to 86. Represented among this year’s newly-elected members are more than 50 universities and more than a dozen corporations, as well as museums, national laboratories, and private research institutes, media outlets, and foundations.

An independent policy research center, the Academy undertakes studies of complex and emerging problems. Its diverse membership of scholars and practitioners from many disciplines and professions gives the Academy a unique capacity to conduct a wide range of interdisciplinary, long-term policy research. Current studies focus on science, technology, and global security; social policy and American institutions; the humanities and culture; and education.

The new class will be inducted at a ceremony on October 11, at the Academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“The Academy honors excellence by electing to membership remarkable men and women who have made preeminent contributions to their fields, and to the world,” said Academy President Emilio Bizzi. “We are pleased to welcome into the Academy these new members to help advance our founders’ goal of ‘cherishing knowledge and shaping the future.’”

Ms. Alsop’s fellow inductees include – among others – U.S. Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice John Paul Stevens; mathematician and philanthropist James H. Simons; soprano Dawn Upshaw; winners of the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, Linda Buck, a 2004 laureate who discovered a molecular understanding of the sense of smell, and molecular biologist Craig Mello, a 2006 recipient for the discovery of RNA interference; composer Yehudi Wyner; blues guitarist B. B. King; computer company founders Michael Dell (Dell Computer), and Charles M. Geschke and John E. Warnock (Adobe Systems, Inc.); two-time cabinet secretary and former White House Chief of Staff James A. Baker III; astronomer Adam Riess, who contributed to the discovery of dark energy in the universe; electrical engineer Henry Smith, the father of x-ray lithography; Academy Award-winning filmmakers Ethan and Joel Cohen and Milos Forman; Emory University Provost and historian Earl Lewis; Darwin biographer Janet Browne; and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Edwards P. Jones.

The Academy’s Chief Executive Officer Leslie Berlowitz said: “For 228 years, the Academy has served the public good by convening leading thinkers and doers from diverse perspectives to examine – and provide practical policy solutions to – the pressing issues of the day. I am confident that this distinguished class of new members will continue that tradition.”

Foreign Honorary Members in this year’s class come from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, Canada, Mexico, and Israel and include former Chief Justice of South Africa Arthur Chaskalson; Nobel Prize-winning Israeli biologist Aaron Ciechanover; Novartis International Chairman and CEO Daniel Vasella; British climate change expert John H. Lawton; former Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge G. Castañeda; Nobel Prize-winning Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk; and Spanish film director, producer, and screenwriter Pedro Almodóvar.

Founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock, and other scholar-patriots, the Academy has elected as members the finest minds and most influential leaders from each generation, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 19th, and Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill in the 20th. The current membership includes some 200 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners.