Visionary saxophonist, composer and conceptualist Miguel Zenón receives 2024 Doris Duke Artist Award for Exceptional Achievement in Jazz

Visionary saxophonist, composer and conceptualist Miguel Zenón receives 2024 Doris Duke Artist Award for Exceptional Achievement in Jazz

The Doris Duke Foundation announced that saxophonist, composer and conceptualist Miguel Zenón has received a 2024 Doris Duke Artist Award, the largest prize in the United States specifically dedicated to individual performing artists. He is one of six honorees selected for their exceptional achievement, each of whom is being awarded $525,000 in unrestricted funds and an incentive of up to $25,000 to save for retirement. Other 2025 honorees include Nataki Garrett (theater), Shamel Pitts (dance), Acosia Red Elk (dance), esperanza spalding (jazz) and Chay Yew (theater).

 

“The Doris Duke Artist Award is more than an award—it is a platform to fight for the future of all performing artists. In illuminating the full range of human possibility, these six remarkable artists show us why that struggle is so important,” said Doris Duke Foundation President and CEO Sam Gill.

“I’m extremely grateful to receive this award along with such a distinguished group of individuals,” said Zenón. “Recognitions like this one inspire us all to keep pushing forward as artists and creators, with open minds and ears.”
 
The Doris Duke Artist Award was established in 2012 to unlock the power of creativity and to shape our society for the better. The award and associated programming are designed to create conditions in which artists can thrive. In addition to providing a cash prize, the foundation also gives the award winners support including professional development, financial planning and management services, enhanced networking and performance opportunities.
 
In conjunction with the 2024 Awards, the Doris Duke Foundation will further expand its support of the community of award winners, some of society’s greatest living theater, dance and jazz artists. In April, the foundation will host the first in a series of annual convenings in New York that will feature a marquee symposium about the future of the performing arts entitled “Creative Labor, Creative Conditions: A Symposium and Celebration of the Doris Duke Artist Awards” and will inaugurate an annual retreat for Doris Duke Artist awardees at Duke Farms, the foundation’s 2,700-acre environmental center.  

The award program recognizes artists for their established record of achievement within the disciplines of contemporary dance, jazz and theater. The unrestricted nature of the award allows artists to use the funds for either personal or professional needs and enjoy the freedom to pursue projects of their choosing. Last year, the foundation doubled the amount of the award to signal the power of sustained support for individual performing artists and to celebrate the immense shared benefits to society when artists are invested in as whole people and as creative laborers. Including the 2024 recipients, the foundation to date has provided 135 artists with $38.8 million through the Doris Duke Artist Award program. 

For more information about the Doris Duke Artist Awards, visit dorisdukeartistawards.org.

ABOUT MIGUEL ZENÓN

2024 Doris Duke Artist Award recipient, Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellow and 2024 Grammy® winner Miguel Zenón is one of a select group of musicians who have masterfully balanced and blended the often-contradictory poles of innovation and tradition. Widely considered one of the most groundbreaking and influential saxophonists of his generation, Zenón has also developed a unique voice as a composer and as a conceptualist, concentrating his efforts on perfecting a fine mix between jazz and his many musical influences. Born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Zenón has built a distinguished career as a leader and has released 16 albums under his own name. In addition, he has honed his artistic identity by collaborating with both established jazz masters and the music’s younger innovators, irrespective of style and genre. Zenón has toured or recorded with artists including the SFJAZZ Collective, Charlie Haden and Doris Duke Artists Fred Hersch and Danilo Perez. He has given hundreds of lectures and master classes worldwide, and serves as a faculty member in the music and theater arts department at MIT. In 2011, Zenón founded Caravana Cultural, a program that presents free-of-charge jazz concerts in rural areas of Puerto Rico.

ABOUT THE DORIS DUKE FOUNDATION

The mission of the Doris Duke Foundation (DDF) is to build a more creative, equitable and sustainable future by investing in artists and the performing arts, environmental conservation, medical research, child well-being and greater mutual understanding among diverse communities. DDF focuses its support to the performing arts on contemporary dance, jazz and theater artists, and the organizations that nurture, present and produce them. The Doris Duke Foundation is one of only two foundations in history to have received the National Medal of the Arts from the National Endowment for the Arts, presented by President Barack Obama, in special recognition of DDF's support of creative expression across the United States and bold commitment to artistic risk, helping artists, musicians, dancers and actors share their talents and enrich the cultural life of the nation. Visit www.dorisduke.org to learn more.