Alec Baldwin and NYC's Mayor Michael Bloomberg co-hosted the 35th annual Mayor's Awards for Arts and Culture at Lincoln Center's recently refurbished Alice Tully Hall on Tuesday, November 2nd 2011. Their comedic verbal sparring was superb, with a running gag about Baldwin's putative desire to be New York's mayor some day.
The event, as I have learned in the six years that I've been privileged to attend, is always a thoroughly engaging mix of genial wit, exciting performances, and inspiring acceptance speeches by the honorees as well as by Bloomberg. He never fails to mention the fact that NYC's Department of Cultural Affairs, the city agency that presents the awards, is the largest funder of arts and culture in the United States, surpassing even the National Endowment for the Arts. My pride in this city always swells when I hear that -- especially since Ballet Ambassadors, the arts-in-education company I founded and continue to direct, has been a DCA grant recipient since 2006.
Audience members were treated to top-notch entertainment that included a stirring number by Flamenco Viva Carlota Santana, a glorious songfest by the young people of the New York All-City High School Chorus and the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts Concert Choir, a phenomenal and full-voiced rendition of "Broadway Baby" by a 13-year-old schoolgirl whose name should have been on the playbill, and a powerful vocal solo by Liz Callaway.
