On Monday, September 26, 2016, the New-York Historical Society will present Ken Burns and Ric Burns with the distinguished 2016 History Makers Award during its annual History Makers Gala at Cipriani 42nd Street. The event will include a special presentation and performance by Wynton Marsalis (recipient of the 2012 History Maker Award).
“It is a privilege to honor Ken Burns and Ric Burns with this year’s History Makers Award,” said New-York Historical Society President and CEO Dr. Louise Mirrer. “Through their remarkable body of work, they have brought history to life for millions of Americans, allowing us to discover essential truths about the founding of our nation and our city while helping us remember the struggles and triumphs that have taken place along the way.”
The funds raised will benefit programs of the New-York Historical Society, including its major Museum exhibitions and its historical education programs for more than 200,000 New York City public school students. Past recipients of the History Maker Award include Ron Chernow and Lin-Manuel Miranda (2015), Hillary Clinton (2014), David Petraeus (2013), Wynton Marsalis (2012), and Henry Kissinger (2011), among others.
Ken Burns has been making documentary films for almost forty years. Since the Academy Award- nominated Brooklyn Bridge in 1981, Ken has gone on to direct and produce some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made, including The Civil War; Baseball; Jazz; The Statue of Liberty; Huey Long; Lewis and Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery; Frank Lloyd Wright; Mark Twain; Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson; The War; The National Parks: America’s Best Idea; The Roosevelts: An Intimate History; Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies; and Jackie Robinson.
Ken’s films have been honored with dozens of major awards, including fourteen Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, and two Oscar nominations. In September 2008, at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards, Ken was honored by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Ken has been called the “greatest documentarian of the day” and “the most influential filmmaker period.” The late historian Stephen Ambrose said of his films, “More Americans get their history from Ken Burns than any other source.”
Future projects include The Vietnam War, as well as films on the history of country music, Ernest Hemingway, and the history of stand-up comedy.
Ric Burns is a documentary filmmaker and writer, best known for his epic eight-part series New York: A Documentary Film. Burns has been writing, directing, and producing historical documentaries for o over twenty-five years, since his collaboration on the PBS series The Civil War, which he produced with his brother, Ken, and co-wrote with Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken. Since founding Steeplechase Films in 1989, he has directed some of the most distinguished programs for PBS, including Coney Island, The Donner Party, The Way West, Ansel Adams, Eugene O’Neill, Andy Warhol, We Shall Remain: Tecumseh’s Vision, Into the Deep: America, Whaling & the World, Death and the Civil War, American Ballet Theatre: A History, Debt of Honor: Disabled Veterans in American History, and The Pilgrims.
His work has won numerous film and television awards including six Emmy Awards; two George Foster Peabody Awards; two Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Awards; three Writer’s Guild of America Awards for Outstanding Individual Achievement in a Craft: Writing; the Erik Barnouw Award of the Organization of American Historians; and the D.W. Griffith Award of the National Board of Review.
Burns has several upcoming projects, including The Chinese Exclusion Act, Driving While Black: African Americans on the Road in the Era of Jim Crow, The Department of Veterans Affairs: A History, and Oliver Sacks: His Own Life.
Event: History Makers Gala
When: Monday, September 26, 2016
Location: Cipriani 42nd Street, 110 East 42nd Street, New York City
Time:
- 6 pm – Cocktails
- 6:45 pm – Dinner
Tickets:
- $1,250 Scholar’s Ticket
- $2,500 Leadership Ticket
- $5,000 Editor’s Ticket
- $12,500 Producer’s Table
- $25,000 Director’s Table
- $50,000 Documentarian’s Table
- $100,000 President’s Table
RSVP: For more information or to purchase tickets, please call 212-485-9523 or email barbi@barbizakinevents.com.
Filed under: Arts & Culture, Culture, Fine Arts, Museums & Exhibitions Tagged: Filmmakers Ken Burns and Ric Burns, the New-York Historical Society’s Annual History Makers Gala
