# Alpert Awards in the Arts

The Herb Alpert Award in the Arts was established in the 1994 by The Herb Alpert Foundation in collaboration with the California Institute of the Arts. The Herb Alpert Foundation, which included then-present Kip Cohen, and benefactors Herbert and Lani Alpert, approached then-CalArts president Steven Lavine with the proposition of providing young artists studying at the institute opportunities to engage with current American artists. This would be a forum to provide them with the best possible professional training. CalArts previously established a relationship with Herb Alpert from his support of the jazz program at the School of Music.
Initially, the Alpert Foundation provided a $50,000 award to five early mid-career artists. Artist are selected in the disciplines of dance, film and video, music, theatre, and visual arts, each representative of five of the six schools at CalArts. In order to be selected for the award, there is a two-tier process of nominators and panelists. Each year, the CalArts faculty determines fifty artists and art professionals as nominators to select two artist each. 100 artists are then invited to apply to award, which will be judged by panel of three experts in each discipline (15 total). According to the foundation, the awards are chosen by a panel of experts and are given to risk-taking artists typically in their mid-careers. The foundation attempts to identify artists who were sensitive to the artist's potential contribution to society. Awardees spend a week at CalArts, lecturing, offering classes, and meeting individually with current students. In addition to the residency, recipients have also shown or performed their work at CalArts' professional arts theater, REDCAT, in downtown Los Angeles.
In 2010, the foundation in increased its annual fellowship to $75,000. In 2021, the Foundation increased the number of recipients to two in each discipline, comprising with a total of ten awardees each year.
| Year | Film/Video | Visual Arts | Theatre | Dance | Music |
| 1995 | Leslie Thornton | Mel Chin | Reza Abdoh | Ann Carlson | James Carter |
| 1996 | Su Friedrich | Carrie Mae Weems | Suzan-Lori Parks | David Roussève | Anne LeBaron |
| 1997 | Craig Baldwin | Kerry James Marshall | Lisa Kron | Victoria Marks | Chen Yi |
| 1998 | Jeanne C. Finley | Roni Horn | Danny Hoch | Joanna Haigood | Pamela Z |
| 1999 | Lourdes Portillo | Pepon Osorio | Brian Freeman | Ralph Lemon | George Lewis |
| 2000 | Peggy Ahwesh | Shirin Neshat | W. David Hancock | Mark Dendy | Steve Coleman |
| 2001 | Ellen Bruno | Cai Guo-Qiang | Erik Ehn | John Kelly | Zhou Long |
| 2002 | RTMark | Christian Marclay | David Greenspan | Lisa Nelson | Laetitia Sonami |
| 2003 | Coco Fusco | Catherine Opie | Carl Hancock Rux | Rennie Harris | Vijay Iyer |
| 2004 | Renee Tajima-Peña | Catherine Sullivan | Dan Hurlin | Stephan Koplowitz | Miya Masaoka |
| 2005 | Jem Cohen | Harrell Fletcher | Naomi Iizuka | Donna Uchizono | David Dunn |
| 2006 | Bill Morrison | Jim Hodges | Daniel Alexander Jones | Sarah Michelson | Lawrence D. Morris |
| 2007 | Jacqueline Goss | Walid Raad | Cynthia Hopkins | Jeanine Durning | Mark Feldman |
| 2008 | Bruce McClure | Byron Kim | Lisa D'Amour | Pat Graney | Derek Bermel |
| 2009 | Paul Chan | Paul Pfeiffer | Rinde Eckert | Reggie Wilson | John King |
| 2010 | Jim Trainor | Rachel Harrison | Bill Talen | Susan Rethorst | Lukas Ligeti |
| 2011 | Natalia Almada | Emily Jacir | Marc Bamuthi Joseph | Jess Curtis | Nicole Mitchell |
| 2012 | Kevin Everson | Michael Smith | Eisa Davis | Nora Chipaumire | Myra Melford |
| 2013 | Lucien Castaing-Taylor | Sharon Hayes | Pavol Liska & Kelly Copper | Julia Rhoads | Alex Mincek |
| 2014 | Deborah Stratman | Daniel Joseph Martinez | Annie Dorsen | Michelle Dorrance | Matana Roberts |
| 2015 | Sharon Lockhart | Tania Bruguera | Taylor Mac | Maria Hassabi | Julia Wolfe |
| 2016 | Cauleen Smith | Simone Leigh | Anne Washburn | Ishmael Houston-Jones | Dohee Lee |
| 2017 | Kerry Tribe | Amy Franceschini | Daniel Fish | luciana achugar | Eve Beglarian |
| 2018 | Arthur Jafa | Michael Rakowitz | Robert O'Hara | Okwui Okpokwasili | Courtney Bryan |
| 2019 | Beatriz Santiago Muñoz | Cecilia Vicuña | Lloyd Suh | Pam Tanowitz | Meshell Ndegeocello |
| 2020 | Sky Hopinka | Firelei Báez | Phil Soltanoff | Karen Sherman | Christian Scott |
| 2021 | Kahlil Joseph, Adam Khalil | Tanya Lukin Linklater, Steffani Jemison | Kimber Lee, Kaneza Schaal | Beth Gill, Will Rawls | David Virelles, Toshi Reagon |
| 2022 | Bani Khoshnoudi, Terence Nance | Guadalupe Maravilla, Martine Syms | Virginia Grise, Aleshea Harris | Nia Love, Yanira Castro | Tomeka Reid, Cory Smythe |
| 2023 | Christopher Harris, Madeleine Hunt-Ehrlich | American Artist, Park McArthur | Whitney White, Tania El Khoury | Makini [jumatatu m. poe] and Jermone Donte Beacham, Ayodele Casel | Erin Gee, Linda May Han Oh |
| 2024 | Lucy Raven, Nuotama Bodomo | Marie Watt, Marina Rosenfeld | Cannupa Hanska Luger, Robin Frohardt | Mariana Valencia, Jonathan González | Huang Ruo, Anna Webber |