Due to inclement weather and concern for everyone's safety, we made the difficult decision of cancelling the physical gathering of
The Downtown Dinner Reimagined.
All Lawn sponsorships will now be considered fully tax-deductible. Please email Rebecca at rcardwell@lmcc.net if you have any questions about your contribution.
We hope you will join us in person for the public season at The Arts Center at Governors Island.
Warmest wishes,
The Team at LMCC
Bill Frisell’s career as a guitarist and composer has spanned more than 40 years and many celebrated recordings, whose catalog has been cited by Downbeat as “the best recorded output of the decade”.
“Frisell has had a lot of practice putting high concept into a humble package. Long hailed as one of the most distinctive and original improvising guitarists of our time, he has also earned a reputation for teasing out thematic connections with his music... There’s a reason that Jazz at Lincoln Center had him program a series called Roots of Americana.” - New York Times
His latest recording is Valentine, on Blue Note, a trio album with Thomas Morgan (bass) and Rudy Royston (drums) that has been hailed as “a masterpiece” by Downbeat. “They consistently and strikingly play as one, voices intertwined, completing phrases as if sharing a single thought… Even overdubs are so perfect that everything feels utterly organic… the performances represent jazz playing at its most sublime.”
Frisell’s recent album, HARMONY and has been described in the New York Times as follows:
“The eminent guitarist improvises in smoky ringlets of melody, drawing the influence of classic jazz guitar into a palette based on early American folk music. HARMONY finds Frisell playing smoldering original compositions along with a few covers alongside vocalist Petra Haden, cellist Hank Roberts and guitarist and bassist Luke Bergman.”
Recognized as one of America’s 21 most vital and productive performing artists, Frisell was named an inaugural Doris Duke Artist in 2012. He is also a recipient of grants from United States Artists, Meet the Composer among others. In 2016, he was a beneficiary of the first FreshGrass Composition commission to preserve and support innovative grassroots music. Upon San Francisco Jazz opening their doors in 2013, he served as one of their Resident Artistic Directors. Bill is also the subject of a documentary film by director Emma Franz, entitled Bill Frisell: A Portrait, which examines his creative process in depth. He has received an honorary doctorate from the Berklee College of Music.
Okwui Okpokwasili is a writer, performer, and choreographer. In partnership with collaborator Peter Born, Okpokwasili creates multidisciplinary projects that are raw, intimate experiences. As a performer, Okpokwasili frequently collaborates with director and choreographer Ralph Lemon, including Come Home, Charley Patton (2006), for which she won a “Bessie" Award for Outstanding Performer; How Can You Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere? (2010), a duet performed at the Museum of Modern Art as part of On Line: Drawing Through the Twentieth Century (2011), and Scaffold Room (2014). Okpokwasili has appeared as an actor in many productions including Richard Maxwell's Cowboys and Indians (1999), Richard Foreman's Maria del Bosco (2001), Kristin Marting's Sounding (2009), Joan Dark (2009), Young Jean Lee's Lear (2010), Nora Chipaumire's Miriam (2012), and Julie Taymor's A Midsummer Night's Dream (2013). Film credits include The Interpreter (2005), The Hoax (2006), I Am Legend (2007), Knut Åsdam's Abyss (2010), and Malorie's Final Score (2013).
Damon Davis is a post-disciplinary artist based in St. Louis, Missouri. In a practice that is part therapy, part social commentary, his work spans across a spectrum of creative mediums to tell stories exploring how identity is informed by power and mythology. He is well known for his solo exhibition, "Darker Gods in The Garden of The Low Hanging Heavens", which premiered in St. Louis in 2018 and went on to show at Art Basel Miami later that year. The exhibit explored the surrealist manifestations of Black culture by constructing new mythologies in response to tropes of Blackness. In 2010, Davis founded music collective and label, FarFetched, for which he now serves as creative director. Filmmaker Magazine selected him and Sabaah Folayan as part of the “25 New Faces of Independent Film 2016” for their work co-directing the critically acclaimed documentary Whose Streets? chronicling the Ferguson uprising of 2014. In 2020, critic Ben Davis cited his project "All Hands on Deck", which captured the hands of people who shaped and upheld the Ferguson movement, as one of the “100 Works of Art That Defined the Decade.” Davis is a 2015 Firelight Media Fellow, 2016 Sundance Lab Fellow, 2017 TED Fellow, and 2020-2022 Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow. His work is featured in the permanent collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Our Supporters
As of June 3, 2021
Glade Sponsorship
Citi
HLW International LLP
The Howard Hughes Corporation
Neil Parikh
WB Wood & The Mines Family
Meadow Sponsorship
Ken & Kim Blacklow
BuroHappold Engineering
Linda Genereux & Timur Galen
Anne Goldrach/Greystone Management Corp.
Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP
Cherrie Nanninga
Newmark
Time Equities, Inc.
Rose Supporters
AAI Architects, P.C.
Scott B. Salmirs, President & CEO, ABM
Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP
Meredith Kane
Skidmore Owings & Merrill
Tishman Speyer
Goldenrod Supporters
Marcia and Noel Caban
Lendlease
May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Inc.
Structure Tone
Unity International Group
Honeysuckle Supporters
Richard Berney, Cozen O'Connor
Cosentini Associates
Downtown-Lower Manhattan Association
Marie de Foucaud
Gensler – Robin Klehr Avia
Goldman, Sachs & Co.
Ann Harakawa
Jaros Baum & Bolles
Charles Maikish, Chairman Emeritus, LMCC and retired Director, WTC
McDermott Will & Emery LLP
Anne Boardman Miller
Esta Stecher
Thornton Tomasetti
Board of Directors
Timur Galen, Chair
Francis Greenburger, Treasurer
Kimberly Brown Blacklow, Secretary & Vice Chair
Kevin Hoo, Vice Chair
Michael Ashworth
Jay Berman
Susan Boyle
Marcia Caban
Bruce Ehrmann
Ekene Ezulike
Dino Fusco
Anne Goldrach
Shari C. Hyman
David Jansen
Eric Johnson
Meredith Kane
Adam Meister
Richard Mines
Cherrie Nanninga
Neil Parikh
Peter Poulakakos
Cindy Quan
R. Sarah Richardson
Brian Saluzzo
Sujohn Sarkar
Craig Schwitter
Friends of LMCC Steering Committee
Marie de Foucaud, Co-Chair
Neil Parikh, Co-Chair
Michelle Grey
Jean-Christophe Laizeau
Peter Malachi
Luisella Meloni
Srenica Munthree
Ben Rawlingson-Plant
Edward Roussel
Olympia Scarry