Kris Davis receives 2021 Doris Duke Artist Award.
Friday, October 22, 2021
The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) has announced that pianist, composer, jazz activist & educator Kris Davis has received a 2021 Doris Duke Artist Award. Press release attached.
We have received the following press release;
Visionary pianist, composer, community builder and educator Kris Davis receives 2021 Doris Duke Artist Award.
October 21, 2021 – The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) today announced that pianist, composer, jazz activist and educator Kris Davis has received a 2021 Doris Duke Artist Award in recognition of her ongoing innovation and impact in the field of jazz.
Davis is one of seven 2021 Doris Duke Artists, including three in jazz, each receiving an award of $275,000 intended as an investment in their artistic potential and celebration of their ongoing contributions to the fields of contemporary dance, jazz and theater. Other jazz artists receiving a 2021 award are Danilo Pérez and Wayne Shorter.
“I am deeply honored and grateful to have been selected by my community and peers for a 2021 Doris Duke Artist Award,” says Davis. “Musical innovation, self expression, risk-taking, community building, collaboration and connecting to others through sound are all motivators of my artistic practice. This award is meaningful as it provides external validation from my peers, a moment to reflect on the journey, and encouragement to keep going, searching, and growing. I am humbled to receive a Doris Duke Artist Award, especially at this critical moment in history. Musicians continue to be deeply affected by the pandemic and I am motivated more than ever to be a leader in revitalizing our community by providing opportunities for artists through my label Pyroclastic Records, and as an educator and mentor at the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice.”
The Doris Duke Artist Awards represent the largest national award to individuals in the performing arts. Each artist receives a prize of $250,000 in completely unrestricted funding and an additional $25,000 dedicated to encouraging savings for retirement. Rather than being tied to specific projects, these awards are available for recipients to use in whatever way best supports their ability to take creative risks, explore new ideas, and pay for important professional and personal needs.
About Kris Davis
A 2021 Doris Duke Artist in the jazz category, Kris Davis is a critically acclaimed pianist and composer who was described by The New York Times as a beacon for “deciding where to hear jazz on a given night.”
Since 2003, Davis has released 23 recordings as a leader or co-leader and has collaborated with previous fellow Doris Duke Artists such as Terri Lyne Carrington and Craig Taborn along with other celebrated musicians. Davis began studying classical piano at age 6, and in her early teens, she discovered her love of jazz through the music of Herbie Hancock and Keith Jarrett, leading her to study jazz at the University of Toronto. She then completed a master’s degree in classical composition from the City College of New York a few years later.
In 2019, her album Diatom Ribbons was named jazz album of the year by both the New York Times and the NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll. She was also named 2020 Pianist of the Year, 2017 Rising Star Pianist and 2018 Rising Star Artist by DownBeat, and 2020 Pianist and Composer of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association. Her 2016 release, Duopoly, was listed as one of the best albums of the year by Jazz Times.
In 2016, Davis launched Pyroclastic Records to support artists whose expression expands beyond the commercial sphere. She subsequently formed a nonprofit organization to support the label’s work, which has been steadily growing, releasing five to six albums per year. In addition, Davis is the associate program director of creative development at the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice.
Davis was a 2015 recipient of the Doris Duke Impact Award, and she has also received multiple commissions for composing new works from The Shifting Foundation, The Jazz Gallery and the Canada Council for the Arts.
About the Doris Duke Artist Awards
The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation designed the Doris Duke Artist Awards to invest in exemplary individual artists in contemporary dance, jazz and theater work who have demonstrated their artistic vitality and ongoing commitment to their field. The award is not a lifetime achievement award. Rather, it is a deep investment in the creative potential of dedicated artists. The foundation aims to empower Doris Duke Artists through the freedom of unrestricted support to take creative risks, explore new ideas, and pay for important professional and personal needs not typically funded by the project-related grants that dominate arts funding. While the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation initially conceived the Doris Duke Artists Awards as part of a larger $50 million special initiative that finished in 2017, recognition of the program’s importance in helping artists thrive spurred the foundation to cement a place for the flexible awards in its core strategy to support the arts.
About the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation
The mission of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) is to improve the quality of people’s lives through grants supporting the performing arts, environmental conservation, medical research and child well-being, and through preservation of the cultural and environmental legacy of Doris Duke’s properties. The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation focuses its support to the performing arts on contemporary dance, jazz and theater artists, and the organizations that nurture, present and produce them. In 2015, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) awarded the foundation with a 2014 National Medal of Arts, presented by President Barack Obama, in special recognition of DDCF’s support of creative expression across the United States and “bold commitment” to artistic risk, which has helped artists, musicians, dancers and actors share their talents and enriched the cultural life of the nation. For more information, please visit http://www.ddcf.org.