Herb Alpert Award In Arts Announces 2025 Panelists

On May 2, 2025, the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts will announce ten awards to risk-taking, mid-career artists who are challenging and transforming art, their respective disciplines, and society. Fifteen highly regarded leaders in the arts make up the panels overseeing the artist nominations, selecting two award recipients in each of five disciplines: dance, film/video, music, theatre and visual arts.

The awards were founded and conceived by legendary musician, philanthropist and artist Herb Alpert, and his Grammy-winning vocalist wife, Lani Hall. Now in its 30th year, the HAAIA has to date been awarded to 164 artists. Each awardee receives a $75,000 unrestricted prize and residency at CalArts (California Institute of the Arts) which administers the prize on behalf of the Herb Alpert Foundation.

Herb Alpert and Lani Hall created the Herb Alpert Foundation in 1985 and over thirty-nine years and more than $210 million dollars in grants, Herb Alpert remains one of America's most important and loyal advocates for the arts and arts education. Having witnessed the gradual, and sometimes precipitous decline of funding for the arts, Herb Alpert took action and the arts found a new arena of significant support - and a new champion.

Irene Borger, Director of HAAIA, reflects on the Award's continued importance in honoring experimental artists. "Created in the '90's, at the time of the culture wars, the Herb Alpert Award continues to identify artists whose rigorous, visionary investigations and invigorating forms propose necessary and more humane futures. Coming together in 2025, the fifteen panelists, in their turn, were invigorated not only by the artists' work but by the potential for support in the context of a world turned upside down."

Rona Sebastian, President of the Herb Alpert Foundation notes, "In this 31st year of the Award, Herb and Lani Alpert continue their commitment to honor and contribute to supremely dedicated and talented art makers and performing artists. Trusting artists with an unrestricted prize, as they go further and deeper into their art, is critical at this moment when artistic freedom and exploration are under assault."

Today, the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts announces the 2025 panelists (see below). Each award in the five categories is adjudicated by three-member panels of respected arts professionals and artists, including six past HAAIA winners among this year's panelists.

2025 HAAIA Panelists:

DANCE

Yanira Castro, interdisciplinary artist, Herb Alpert Award Artist, Lenapehoking (Brooklyn, NY)

Joanna Haigood, choreographer, Artistic Director, Zaccho Dance Theatre, Herb Alpert Award Artist, San Francisco, CA

Gideon Lester, Artistic Director and Chief Executive, Fisher Center at Bard, Annandale-on-Hudson and Brooklyn, NY

FILM/VIDEO

Christopher Harris, artist/filmmaker, Herb Alpert Award Artist, Professor of Visual Arts, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ

Alexandra Juhasz, scholar, maker, and teacher of activist media, Distinguished Professor of Film, Brooklyn College, CUNY, Brooklyn

Bani Khoshnoudi, artist/filmmaker, Herb Alpert Award Artist, Mexico City, Mexico and Paris, France

MUSIC

Eve Beglarian, composer, performer, Herb Alpert Award Artist, New York and Vermont

Tomeka Reid, cellist, composer, improvisor, Herb Alpert Award Artist, Chicago, IL

David Virelles, pianist, composer, record producer, Herb Alpert Award Artist, New York

THEATRE

Carra Martinez, Senior Director of Artistic Programs, YoungArts, Miami, FL

Tom Sellar, Editor, Theater magazine and Professor in the Practice of Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism, David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University, New Haven, CT and Brooklyn, NY

Seema Sueko-Low, theatre artist, director, consultant, co-curator DNAWORKS, Honolulu, HI

VISUAL ARTS

Katherine C. M. Adams, curator and writer; Associate Curator, Time-Based Visual Arts, The Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center, (EMPAC), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York

Tim Griffin, Executive Director, The Industry, Los Angeles, CA

Paul Ha, Director, Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA

Los Angeles Awards - Live Stats

Best Musical - Top 3

1. JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR (Hollywood Bowl)

9.2% of votes

2. HAIR (Conundrum Theatre)

5% of votes

3. HEATHERS (Backyard Playhouse: Treetop Production)

4.9% of votes

Vote Now!