The recipients of one of the United States’ most prestigious cultural awards, the Kennedy Center Honors, have been announced for 2022.
George Clooney, U2, Gladys Knight, Tania León and Amy Grant are being given the yearly awards, which were founded in 1978 and last year recognised Joni Mitchell and Berry Gordy among others.
Clooney was hailed by Kennedy Center chairman David M Rubenstein for his “unique brand of earnest charisma and his complete embodiment of a character [that] has led us to root for him every time.” Clooney said the honour was “a genuinely exciting surprise … Growing up in a small town in Kentucky I could never have imagined that someday I’d be the one sitting in the balcony at the Kennedy Center Honors.”
U2 join the likes of Sean Connery, the Who, Paul McCartney and Andrew Lloyd Webber as relatively rare non-American recipients of the honour. Rubenstein said the Irish band “won over America and the world long ago with their iconic anthems, potent lyrics, and powerful messages of social justice and global citizenship”, with the band acknowledging “a four-decade love affair with the country and its people, its artists, and culture”.
Soul legend Knight, awarded for her “boundless vocal range and soulfulness that has stood the test of time” and who recently completed a rapturously received UK tour at the age of 78, said: “You could never have told me as a young girl starting my career that I would be honoured on a stage such as this, with artists and humanitarians such as these – it just wouldn’t have seemed possible. It would have been the dream of all dreams.”
Six-time Grammy award winner Amy Grant is one of the most significant Christian pop music performers in the US, crossing over into the mainstream in the 1980s and scoring two US No 1 singles. “Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine ever receiving this … I cannot wait to celebrate with my fellow honourees, friends, and family,” she said.
Cuba-born classical music composer Tania León, 79, settled in New York City in the late 1960s and has produced what Rubenstein called “astoundingly original compositions” that span orchestral works, opera and ballet, alongside a prestigious conducting career. “Little did I imagine when studying in La Habana that life was going to grace me with such a distinction!” she said. “My first thoughts went to my ancestors: they believed in my dreams, and what we lacked in material wealth, they made up for in spirit, encouragement, and support.”
This year’s honours will be presented on Sunday 4 December, and aired on US network CBS at a later date.
