Joni Mitchell, Bette Midler, Lorne Michaels, Berry Gordy, Justino Daz honoredExBulletin

This year’s Kennedy Center laureates Joni Mitchell, Bette Mider, Berry Gordy, Lorne Michaels and Justino Daz were celebrated this weekend with a reception at the White House, a medal ceremony at the Library of Congress and a splashy, black tie event at the arts centre’s Opera performance. The tributes and performances were filmed for a special broadcast on CBS on December 22.

President Joe Biden and the First Lady attended the gala on Sunday night, a throwback to tradition that did not go unnoticed by host David Letterman. “It’s very nice to see the Presidential Box re-occupied,” Letterman said. During President Trump’s four-year tenure, neither he nor Melania Trump attended the Kennedy Center Honors.

Joni Mitchell has been honored for her timeless and soulful songs on albums such as Court and spark – and Blue. “Poetically expansive” is how pianist and songwriter Herbie Hancock described Mitchell’s classic song. On both sides now which she wrote in her early twenties. When Mitchell was nine, she contracted polio. The disease weakened his left hand. When Mitchell first started playing the ukulele and guitar, Hancock explained, she “designed her own tunings so that she could access the emotionally complex chords she was hearing in her mind.”

President Joe Biden, First Lady Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris celebrate the 44th Kennedy Center Laureate Group.

Michael Butcher / Kennedy Center

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Michael Butcher / Kennedy Center

President Joe Biden, First Lady Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris celebrate the 44th Kennedy Center Laureate Group.

Michael Butcher / Kennedy Center

In 2015, Joni Mitchell suffered a brain aneurysm that nearly killed her.

“I think polio has been a rehearsal for the rest of my life,” she said after receiving her Kennedy Center Medallion of Honor. “I had to come back a few times, for one thing, and this last one was a real whopper. But you know, I’m limping in there. I’m fine,” she said to a warm round of applause.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Kennedy Center. Honoré Justino Daz sang in the inaugural performance at Kennedy Center’s Opera House as the leading male role in Alberto Ginastera’s Beatrix Cenci. The Puerto Rican native has shared the world’s most famous stages with renowned singers like Leontyne Price and Joan Sutherland. Best known for playing villains, Daz was Iago in the 1986 film version of Verdi’s Franco Zeffirelli Othello with Plcido Domingo. Among those who paid tribute to Daz were Chita Rivera, Denyce Graves and Grace Bumbry.

The fact that the Kennedy Center Honors are Lifetime Achievement in the Performing Arts has provided fodder for Saturday Night Live past and present cast members. They couldn’t resist asking why their boss, SNL creator, producer and writer Lorne Michaels got one. In a fictional version of Weekend update, Kevin Nealon reported, “Tonight in Washington, DC, Saturday Night Live unnamed creator Lorne Michaels received a Kennedy Center Honor in recognition of his incredibly generous contribution.

Honoree Bette Midler has done it all: comedy, musicals, stage and screen. Her friend and The first women’s club Costar Goldie Hawn simply said that Midler “paid no heed to the rejection.” She added, “She sang. She danced. She rocked her assets. She created The Divine Miss M.”

Billy Porter performed a Bette Midler medley and Kelli O’Hara sang The wind under my wings.

Boxer turned songwriter and entrepreneur Berry Gordy turned an $ 800 loan from his family into a multimedia empire. The Motown hit machine brought the soul of Detroit to the rest of the world with artists like Smokey Robinson, The Four Tops, The Temptations, The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, The Jackson Five and many more. Stevie Wonder recalled her first meeting with Gordy. “I was 11 and you said ‘Okay, I heard you were doing fine. What are you doing?’ And I said, ‘I play the harmonica and I sing.’ I said, ‘I actually sing better than Smokey Robinson.’ “

The Kennedy Center Honors are as much about artistic fellowship as it is about celebrating creative excellence. After receiving his medallion, an emotional Berry Gordy told the audience: “I am so blessed to be in the company of the other award winners, this special group of award winners that I have known and admired for a long, long time.” Gordy continued, “Meeting them, talking to them and letting them know how much I appreciate them has been a wonderful feeling for me tonight.”