Roberta Flack, a graduate of Howard University and former DC Public School Music teacher received the Mayor’s Special Recognition Award last night at the nineteenth annual Mayor’s Arts Awards at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The award recognized her lifetime achievement in the world of music and commitment to music education.

“Artists and cultural institutions are the heart and soul of this great city," said Mayor Anthony A. Wiliams. “I am honored that so many talented artists have made DC their home.”

Mrs. Alma Powell, Vice Chairman of the Kennedy Center Board and Dana Gioia, Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, were also in attendance last night as Washington’s finest artists and arts organizations received accolades and applause from their peers and supporters.

Glass sculptor Tim Tate, who had a spectacular year in 2003, won the Outstanding Emerging Artist award. In 2003 Tate had his first solo show (with us), had his first major museum sale, opened the Washington Glass School and won the international design competition for the AIDS Monument in New Orleans. There are articles about Tate coming in 2004 in both a US and an European glass art magazine.

A complete list of all the categories and the individual and organizational winners are listed below:

Excellence in an Artistic Discipline
Winner: Joy Zinoman

Outstanding Contribution to Arts Education
Winner: DC Youth Orchestra

Outstanding Emerging Artist
Winners: CityDance Ensemble and Tim Tate

Excellence in Service to the Arts
Winners: Whitman Walker Clinic, Art for Life Program and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Board of Directors, Art in Transit Program and The Washington Sculptors Group

Innovation in the Arts
Winner: 48 Hour Film Project Inc.

Mayor’s Special Recognition
Roberta Flack

Special Recognition
Patton-Boggs LLP and Roland Celette, Director of La Maison Francaise