Miguel Zenon Awarded MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Fellowship

Stephen Colbert, host of television’s slash and burn satire show The Colbert Report, has made sport of skewering the annual winners of the MacArthur Foundation “genius” fellowships, sending up avant jazzers Ornette Coleman and John Zorn with particular relish. While Colbert covets a piece of MacArthur hardware as a complement to his mantle full of Peabody and Emmy Awards, recipients receive half a million dollars over four years. The “genius” handle of the MacArthur fellowships generates renewed discussion each year but the awards are not just about the money. Unlike many prizes that focus on lifetime achievement and past reputation, many MacArthur fellows create and innovate in smaller markets. Dayton Contemporary Dance Company founder/choreographer Jeraldyne Blunden received a fellowship in 1994. Often the focus is on younger practitioners whose future impact looks particularly promising. According to the Foundation website, "the fellowship is not a reward for past accomplishment, but rather an investment in a person's originality, insight, and potential.”

One of this year’s recently announced fellows is saxophonist/composer Miguel Zenon. Two years back, Cityfolk introduced Zenon to the Miami Valley region, when he performed a concert with his quartet and conducted workshops with local students in tandem with his pianist Luis Perdomo.

This 32 year old native of Puerto Rico is a big-brained improviser/composer who has been showcased prominently in the SF Jazz Collective and with his own groups. Zenon has done the near impossible in contemporary jazz- managed to stand out and make his mark in a field crowded with gifted, virtuoso players. In Dayton he also proved to be an effective workshopper-effectively communicating with students at both Lincoln (now Cleveland) and Stivers School for the Arts. In a rapidly changing music market of which jazz is a shrinking piece, the art form could use a breakthrough jolt of creativity. With the wind of a MacArthur fellowship at his back, it will be interesting to see and hear where Zenon’s enormous promise leads him.

The MacArthur Fellows Program or MacArthur Fellowship (sometimes nicknamed the "genius grant") is an award given by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation each year to typically 20 to 40 citizens or residents of the U.S., of any age and working in any field, who "show exceptional merit and promise for continued and enhanced creative work." " The current amount of the award is $500,000, paid in quarterly installments over five years. As of 2007, there have been 756 recipients who have received a total of more than $350 million.

The Fellowship has no application. People are nominated anonymously, by a body of nominators who submit recommendations to a small selection committee of about a dozen people, also anonymous. The committee then reviews every nominee and passes along their recommendations to the President and the board of directors. The entire process is anonymous and confidential. Most new MacArthur Fellows first learn that they have even been considered when they receive the congratulatory phone call. A New York Times Op-Ed by MacArthur fellow Jim Collins describes the experience.