2024 Kennedy Center Honors: Grateful Dead, Bonnie Raitt, Arturo Sandoval, & More
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Once a year, the Kennedy Center selects a group of important, outstanding artists for its Kennedy Center Honors, feting its honorees with an all-star gala. The Kennedy Center just announced this year’s list of honorees, and as usual, it includes a few iconic musicians.
As The New York Times reports, this year’s honorees include the Grateful Dead, Bonnie Raitt, and Arturo Sandoval, as well as director Francis Ford Coppola and Harlem institution the Apollo Theater. The Dead’s four surviving original members — Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann — will all be honored. Kreutzmann tells the Times, “This was just another kind of feather in a hat. We felt really good about it, but it’s not that big a deal to us.”
Bonnie Raitt is less blasé about it. She tells the Times, “I don’t live by the validation of either commercial success or getting awards. But because this is such an esteemed weekend and event and process, I don’t think there will ever be anything that I receive that is as important.”
Arturo Sandoval, the jazz trumpeter and composer, became an American citizen after defecting from Cuba in 1990. Barack Obama already presented him with the Presidential Medal Of Freedom in 2013. Sandoval tells the Times, “When something like the Kennedy Center recognizes your effort, it puts a lot of gasoline into your soul to keep trying and improving.”
These artists will all receive their awards 12/8 in what might be Joe Biden’s last Kennedy Center ceremony. The event will air 12/23 on CBS, and it’ll stream on Paramount+. Last year’s honorees included Queen Latifah, Dionne Warwick, and Barry Gibb.