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A James Baldwin Centennial Celebration with Marlon James, Bill T. Jones, and Lucy Liu: Dec. 2 in NYC
MacDowell Presents brings together iconic artists of our time to engage in conversation about creativity and speak to the enduring influence of art.This year, we are excited to bring back this signature event with a special tribute to the legacy of James Baldwin, who was awarded three MacDowell Fellowships between 1954 and 1960 and whose influence on the American consciousness endures today.
This centennial event will feature choreographer, director, author, and dancer Bill T. Jones, critically acclaimed actress, director, producer, advocate, and visual artist Lucy Liu, and award-winning author Marlon James, as well as a special introduction by MacDowell Fellow Nicholas Boggs (3x 11-21), author of Baldwin: A Love Story, forthcoming from FSG in August 2025.
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Courtesy of the Recording Academy.
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| Seven Fellows up for GRAMMYs!
The nominees are:
Best Musical Theater Album: Hell’s Kitchen, with Tom Kitt (17) as a producer, and Suffs by Shaina Taub (12)
Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media: Laura Karpman (85) for American Fiction
Best Instrumental Composition: Christopher Zuar’s (17, 22) Communion
Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance: Christopher Cerrone (15, 17) for Beaufort Scales and Caroline Shaw (17) for Rectangles and Circumstance
Best Contemporary Classical Composition: Composition as Explanation by David Lang (5x 84-90)
In addition, new recordings of two Fellows' works, as well as new works inspired by the writing of Fellows, received GRAMMY nods:
Best Classical Instrumental Solo: Concerto for Violin & Orchestra (Curtis Stewart, violin; James Blachly, conductor) by Julia Perry (8x 54-68)
Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media: Maestro, with music by Leonard Bernstein (3x 62-17), and The Color Purple, based on the novel by Alice Walker (67, 74)
And for Best Alternative Jazz Album: No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin [3x 54-60] by Meshell Ndegeocello
The 2025 GRAMMY Awards Ceremony will air on Sunday, February 2.
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The cover of Orbital (Grove Atlantic / Jonathan Cape), left, and Samantha Harvey at MacDowell in October 2009 (Joanna Eldredge Morrissey photo).
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| Booker Prize Goes to Samantha Harvey's Orbital
“Our unanimity about Orbital recognises its beauty and ambition," said the 2024 Booker Prizes's judging chair, artist and author Edmund de Waal. "It reflects Harvey’s extraordinary intensity of attention to the precious and precarious world we share."
The author’s fifth novel, Orbital follows a day in the life of six international astronauts, circling Earth and taking in its “splendour while navigating bereavement, loneliness and mission fatigue,” observed the prize’s judging panel. “Compact yet beautifully expansive, this is a love letter to our planet.”
In total, four MacDowell Fellows' novels were longlisted for this year’s Booker Prize, with Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange (14, 19), Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner (23), and Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel (17) joining Harvey in the first round of nominees for the honor. Notably, Orange and Kushner’s books were directly supported by their MacDowell Fellowships.
During her 2009 MacDowell residency in MacDowell’s Garland Studio, Harvey worked on her second novel, All is Song.
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Gregory R. Miller, Marian MacDowell Arts Advocacy Award recipient Komal Shah, Board President Christine Fisher, and Executive Director Chiwoniso Kaitano at the 2024 MacDowell National Benefit on October 28 in New York (Beowulf Sheehan photo)
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| A Benefit Fueled by Powerful Performances and Generous Donors
The 2024 MacDowell National Benefit raised more than $945,000 in support of residencies for the more than 300 artists who come to MacDowell from around the world each year!
Hosted with wit and poignance by actor-writer-producer Sharon Washington (24), the event also featured a testimony on the inestimable value of a MacDowell Fellowship from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Hernan Diaz (19) and a moving, room-shaking performance from translator, vocalist, composer, and poet Haleh Liza Gafori (24).
Bringing together nearly 350 guests—MacDowell artists, supporters, board members, and friends—the night closed out with a jubilant afterparty.
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MacDowell Fellows and their guests gathered for a group portrait at the 2024 Fellows Reunion in Brooklyn on November 3 (Guarionex Rodriguez, Jr., photo).
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| A Fête Fit for Fellows: 2024 Reunion Draws More than 100!
The annual gathering, celebrated this year at the Mercury Store in Brooklyn, featured a book swap, karaoke, and raffle that supported future MacDowell Fellowships! We were also grateful have beverages courtesy of Gay Beer, Hana Makgeolli, Good Vodka, and Lunar Hard Seltzer!
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Eugene Gloria in MacDowell's Monday Music Studio in November 2021
(Joanna Eldredge Morrissey photo)
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| Donor Spotlight: Eugene GloriaFor our latest donor spotlight, we interview poet and MacDowell Fellow Eugene Gloria (4x 97-21), who is one of MacDowell’s longest serving sustainer donors.
What made you want to donate to MacDowell the first time?
Donating to MacDowell was first instilled in me before I arrived in Peterborough in 1997. A dear poet friend, Nick Carbó [97, 00], who recently passed away, suggested that I make a gift of $100 to MacDowell when my residency ended. Supporting this creative community and experience made sense to me then, and it still does today, decades later. I’m a poet, but I sustain my art by teaching at a university which relies on the philanthropic support of alumni who think of their alma mater as home. As an artist, I know that MacDowell has been and will always be home to me.
You are one of MacDowell’s longest serving sustaining donors. What makes MacDowell an organization worth supporting every month with a donation?
I’m at a point in my life when I can afford to give a modest gift to MacDowell every month. I believe in MacDowell’s mission to support the arts and especially the work of emerging artists, as I was 30 years ago. The staff at MacDowell go out of their way to respect our space and treat each Fellow with the same amount of respect, regardless of the stage of their career. I will never forget Blake, the longtime staff person who was responsible for showing artists-in-residence to their living quarters during my first and second residencies. When I first arrived, Blake would look at me with his sweet avuncular face and say, “Welcome home.”
You have come to MacDowell for residencies at various points in your career, in 1997, 2001, 2010, and 2021. Could you tell us about how MacDowell has impacted your work and your career? Does that impact play a role in your wish to support MacDowell?
I had not published my first book when I first came to MacDowell. That month gave me the necessary space and time to shape my first collection of poems. I loved my interaction with other artists and writers who were well into their careers but still so encouraging to me. I made lifelong friendships with some of those poets and artists. But again, my greatest honor at MacDowell is being on equal footing with every artist while we are all there together. That’s what makes MacDowell such a special place for me. As another Fellow once said to me, “at MacDowell you arrive as strangers, but leave as friends.”
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George Emilio Sanchez in his In the Court of the Conqueror. Use code PARTNER1 for 20% off tickets to the show at La MaMa (Maria Baranova photo).
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| NYC Events: George Emilio Sanchez at La MaMa + a New Metrograph Series
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New and #MadeAtMacDowell
• Composition:
- Kate Soper's (13, 18) studio album for her opera The Romance of the Rose (New Focus Recordings) is now streaming everywhere.
• Film/Video Arts Arts:
- Lev Kalman's (21) and Whitney Horn's Dream Team this month began its theatrical run in NYC at Metrograph.
• Interdisciplinary Arts:
- Ahamefule J. Oluo's (23) The Things Around Us will have its NYC premiere in the Under the Radar festival in January.
- In Movements, Cassils's (19) Human Measure performance is adapted into three new installations at SITE SANTA FE. On view through Feb. 3.
• Literature:
- Shira Nayman's (19) memoir Shoreline is now out with Guernica Editions.
• Theatre Arts:
- Alina Troyano (16) and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' (3x 12-16) world premiere play Give Me Carmelita Tropicana! is extended through Dec. 22 at Soho Rep.
• Visual Art:
- Olivia Mole's (24) exhibition Nocturne is on view at Gatto Pardo in L.A. through Dec. 7.
- Pallavi Sen's (24) exhibition Colour Theory is up at Williams College Museum of Art through Dec. 22.
- Kelli Connell's (13, 16) exhibition Pictures for Charis, based on her book of the same name, is on view at the High Museum of Art through Jan. 5.
If you are a MacDowell Fellow and you'd like to submit news for inclusion in our newsletters and social media, please email fellowsnews@macdowell.org.
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