At the American Academy in Rome New York Gala on November 14, over 320 guests gathered to honor the Grammy Award-winning jazz trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard, the Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg, and the visual artist Jenny Holzer (2004 Resident) as they received the Centennial Medal, a premier honor awarded by the American Academy in Rome. Hosted at the New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, the event raised more than $1.1 million to advance the Academy’s mission of supporting innovative artists, writers, and scholars living and working together in a dynamic international community.
Alongside Gala Co-Chairs Marilynn Davis (Trustee) and Mary Margaret Jones (1998 Fellow, 2020 and 2023 Resident, Trustee Emerita), Katharine J. Rayner (Trustee) and Cary Davis (Trustee Emerita) served as Honorary Co-Chairs. The Italian Ambassador to the United States, Mariangela Zappia, was Honorary Gala Chair.
After a vibrant cocktail hour, guests enjoyed a seated dinner with a menu advised by Alice Waters, who alongside Mona Talbott founded AAR’s Rome Sustainable Food Project, which since 2006 has nourished scholarship and conviviality at the Academy with seasonal, nutritious, and delicious food served at the communal table. In line with the RSFP’s sustainability principles, all ingredients featured in the dinner menu were locally sourced. Mark Bittman, recently appointed co-director of RSFP with Kathleen Finlay, joined in toasting Waters’ contribution to the AAR community.
A live and silent auction invited guests to bid on experiences such as a visit to the studio of pianist, composer, and multimedia artist Jason Moran (2017 Resident), who has replicated his Academy studio in Stamford, Connecticut, and a behind-the-scenes visit to an excavation site in Pompeii with Tulane University Classics Department Chair Allison Emmerson (2019 Fellow, former Mellon Professor). Guests also bid on the opportunity to visit the rare book collections of Claudia and Enrico Consolandi and Valeria Napoleone with Ilaria Puri Purini (Andrew Heiskell Arts Director), who drew from these repositories while curating the exhibition Artists Making Books, now on view at AAR. The artist and musician Laurie Anderson (2006 Resident) offered the opportunity to join her in her Tribeca studio for demonstrations of the custom musical devices she invented for her performances.
Guests received limited edition camouflage baseball caps designed by Jenny Holzer emblazoned with words like “Truth,” “Eternal,” and “Solve,” in keeping with the artist’s text-based practice and evoking For the Academy, the large-scale light installation she completed along the banks of the Tiber River in 2007, conceived during her 2004 residency at AAR.
Peter N. Miller (President and CEO) and Calvin Tsao (2010 Resident, Chair of the Board) welcomed guests and acknowledged those who supported in organizing the event alongside Jones and Davis before presenting the honorees with the highly regarded Centennial Medals.
Terence Blanchard performed excerpts from three of his own jazz compositions accompanied by the E-Collective and special guests the Turtle Island Quartet, Nicholas Newton (bass-baritone), and Adrienne Danrich (soprano). At the after party, guests took the floor to dance to music by BMAJR.
Numerous Rome Prize Fellows and AAR Residents attended this event, including artist Suzanne Bocanegra (1991 Fellow), architect Stephen Cassell (2023 Resident), Adele Chatfield-Taylor (1984 Fellow, 2020 Resident, former AAR President), art historian Joseph Connors (1987 Resident, former Director), historian Victoria De Grazia (1978 Fellow, 2007 Resident), hagiographer Carmela Vircillo Franklin (1985 Fellow, 2002 Resident, former AAR Director ), architect Richard Gluckman (2017 Resident), literary historian Stephen Greenblatt (2010 Resident, Trustee), playwright and screenwriter John Guare (2013 Resident), landscape architect Walter Hood (1997 Fellow, 2014 Resident, Trustee), musicologist Thomas F. Kelley (1986 Fellow, 2002 Resident), playwright Lynn Nottage (2023 Resident), art historian Louise Rice (1986 and 1995 Fellow, 2008 Resident), archaeologist C. Brian Rose (1992 Fellow, 2012 Resident), Renaissance literature scholar Ramie Targoff (2013 Resident), curator and former director of the Whitney Museum of American Art Adam D. Weinberg (2020 and 2023 Resident, Trustee), co-founders of the architecture studio Weiss/Manfredi Marion Weiss (2019 Resident) and Michael Manfredi (2019 Resident), and renowned artists Whitfield Lovell (2019 Resident) and Fred Wilson (2020 Resident).
Also in attendance were Anthony Ames (1984 Fellow), Suzanna Borghese (Trustee), Vincent J. Buonanno (Trustee Emeritus), Mary Burnham (Trustee), Bill Cameron (Trustee) and Anna Cameron, Mary E. Frank (Trustee Emerita) and Howard Frank, Michelle Hobart (Trustee), Diane Britz Lotti (Trustee Emerita), Tony Marx, Gretchen Mol, Gwen and Peter Norton, MG Orender, Michael Straus (Trustee), Tod C. Williams (1983 Fellow, Trustee), and Aliza Wong (Director).
The Academy is grateful to everyone who supported this year’s New York Gala. Photographs of the event can be viewed at Patrick McMullan.