[Vision2020] Congrats, University of Idaho!

[Carl Westberg]

UI Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival to receive National Medal of Arts
			
				
					Idaho Press-Tribune Staff
newsroom at idahopress.com 				
				
					Updated 44 minutes ago				
				
			 
			
				WASHINGTON,
D.C. — The 40-years-strong University of Idaho Lionel Hampton
International Jazz Festival will receive the National Medal of Arts,
the nation’s most prestigious arts award, from President George W. Bush
in an East Room ceremony on Thursday. The University of Idaho is the
first public university to receive the award since it was created by
Congress in 1984.  “The University of Idaho is
immensely honored to receive the National Medal of Arts and to join the
exclusive company of arts leaders in America,” said University
President Timothy P. White. He and John Clayton, internationally
renowned jazz artist and festival artistic director, will accept the
medal in a White House ceremony. They will be joined by former festival
director Lynn “Doc” Skinner — whose leadership and close working
relationship with Hampton built the festival over three decades — and
other festival supporters.

The National
Medal of Arts was established in 1984, the year Lionel Hampton first
performed at the University of Idaho Jazz Festival, along with Sarah
Vaughan. The festival began as a one-day event in 1967, and grew in
presence and prestige through the decades. In 1985, the festival was
renamed the Lionel Hampton/Chevron Festival in his honor, and
rededicated as the Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival in 2006.
Hampton died in 2002 at age 94.   The festival
now runs for four days, and includes four concerts by professional jazz
musicians, three student concerts, and adjudicated student performances
in more than 20 different sites on campus and throughout the community,
and hosts a series of workshops. Approximately 10,000 students
representing more than 300 schools flock to the festival, in addition
to teachers, parents and local jazz enthusiasts. In 2006, director
Skinner retired and was succeeded by six-time Grammy-nominated bassist,
composer, arranger and conductor John Clayton. The
festival has attracted top-flight jazz artists from around the world,
including current artistic director Clayton; Dizzy Gillespie, Arts
Medal winner in 1989; Ella Fitzgerald, who received the Arts Medal in
1987; Diana Krall; Wynton Marsalis, recipient of the Arts Medal in
2005; and Bobby McFerrin. The 2008 festival runs
Feb. 20-23 with a wide range of performances in a salute to Lionel
Hampton on the centennial of his birth. Congress
established the National Medal of Arts for the purpose of honoring
artists and patrons of the arts. Congress authorized the president to
award no more than 12 medals each year “to individuals or groups who,
in the president's judgment, are deserving of special recognition by
reason of their outstanding contributions to the excellence, growth,
support and availability of the arts in the United States.” During the
past 21 years, more than 200 patrons and artists in the fields of
visual, performing and literary arts have been honored. With this
medal, Bush recognizes the wealth and depth of creative expression of
America's artists.
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