Karen Brooks Hopkins is the president emerita of Brooklyn Academy of Music, having served as its president from 1999 to 2015. [1] Previously she was an adjunct professor for the Brooklyn College Program for Arts Administration. In the spring of 1995, Hopkins served as the executive producer of the Bergman Festival, which celebrated the life and work of Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. [2]
Hopkins studied at the University of Maryland and received her MFA from George Washington University. [3]
She is the author of the book, Successful Fundraising for Arts & Cultural Organizations [4] (1997), published by Greenwood Publishing, and the book, BAM... and Then It Hit Me [5] (2021), published by Powerhouse Books, [6] a memoir of her 36 years leading [7] America's oldest performing arts center. [8]
The success of the Bergman Festival earned her a medal from the Royal Dramatic Theatre of Sweden and also, in recognition of her work on behalf of the Norwegian National Ballet, Norway awarded her its St. Olav Medal. In November 2006, Hopkins was awarded the honor of Chevalier de L’Ordre des arts et des Lettres by the Republic of France for her work supporting the French arts in the United States. In 2007, she was named one of the “100 Most Influential Women in New York City Business” by Crain’s. That same year, she was appointed Commander of the Royal Order of the Polar Star, in recognition of her role in solidifying ties between the performing arts communities of Sweden and the United States. In May 2012, Hopkins was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from St. Francis College, Brooklyn, NY. [2] In March 2014 she was named by Brooklyn Magazine to the list of "The 100 Most Influential People in Brooklyn Culture". [9]
Liv Johanne Ullmann is a Norwegian actress and film director. Recognised as one of the greatest European actresses of all time, Ullmann is known as the muse and frequent partner of filmmaker Ingmar Bergman. She acted in many of his films, including Persona (1966), Cries and Whispers (1972), Scenes from a Marriage (1973), The Passion of Anna (1969), and Autumn Sonata (1978).
Melvin James Brooks is an American actor, comedian, filmmaker, songwriter, and playwright. With a career spanning over seven decades, he is known as a writer and director of a variety of successful broad farces and parodies. A recipient of numerous accolades, he is one of 18 entertainers to win the EGOT, which includes an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, an Academy Award, and a Tony Award. He received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2009, a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 2010, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2013, a British Film Institute Fellowship in 2015, a National Medal of Arts in 2016, a BAFTA Fellowship in 2017, and the Honorary Academy Award in 2023.
Ingrid Bergman was a Swedish actress. With a career spanning five decades, Bergman is often regarded as one of the most influential screen figures in cinematic history. She won numerous accolades, including three Academy Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, four Golden Globe Awards, BAFTA Award and a Volpi Cup. She is one of only four actresses to have received at least three acting Academy Awards. In 1999, the American Film Institute recognised Bergman as the fourth greatest female screen legend of Classic Hollywood Cinema.
Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini is an Italian actress and model. The daughter of Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman and Italian film director Roberto Rossellini, she is noted for her successful tenure as a Lancôme model and an established career in American cinema.
Barbara Joan "Barbra" Streisand is an American singer and actress. With a career spanning over six decades, she has achieved success in multiple fields of entertainment, and is among the few performers awarded an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony (EGOT).
The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is a performing arts venue at 30 Lafayette Avenue in Brooklyn, New York City. Known as a center for progressive and avant-garde performances, the BAM presented its first show in 1861 and began operations in its present location in 1908. The Academy is incorporated as a New York State not-for-profit corporation. It has 501(c)(3) status.
Hanna Holborn Gray is an American historian of Renaissance and Reformation political thought and Professor of History Emerita at the University of Chicago. She served as president of the University of Chicago, from 1978 to 1993, having earlier served as acting president of Yale University in 1977–1978. At both schools, she was the first woman to hold their highest executive office. When named to the post in Chicago, she became one of the first women in the United States to hold the full presidency of a major university.
Fanny and Alexander is a 1982 period drama film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. The plot focuses on two siblings and their large family in Uppsala, Sweden during the first decade of the twentieth century. Following the death of the children's father, their mother remarries a prominent bishop who becomes abusive towards Alexander for his vivid imagination.
Floella Karen Yunies Benjamin, Baroness Benjamin, is a Trinidadian-British actress, singer, presenter, author and politician. She is known as presenter of children's programmes such as Play School, Play Away, Jamboree and Fast Forward. On 28 June 2010, Lady Benjamin was introduced to the House of Lords as a life peer nominated by the Liberal Democrats.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian writer whose works include novels, short stories and nonfiction. She was described in The Times Literary Supplement as "the most prominent" of a "procession of critically acclaimed young anglophone authors" of Nigerian fiction who are attracting a wider audience, particularly in her second home, the United States.
Ann Patchett is an American author. She received the 2002 PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction in the same year, for her novel Bel Canto. Patchett's other novels include The Patron Saint of Liars (1992), Taft (1994), The Magician's Assistant (1997), Run (2007), State of Wonder (2011), Commonwealth (2016), and The Dutch House (2019). The Dutch House was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Vera Mindy Chokalingam, known professionally as Mindy Kaling, is an American actress, screenwriter, and producer. She has received numerous awards for her work, including two Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Tony Award, and was nominated for six Primetime Emmy Awards.
Miss Julie is a 1951 Swedish drama film directed by Alf Sjöberg and starring Anita Björk and Ulf Palme, based on the 1888 play of the same name by August Strindberg. The film deals with class, sex and power as the title character, the daughter of a Count in 19th century Sweden, begins a relationship with one of the estate's servants. The film won the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film at the 1951 Cannes Film Festival.
Harvey Lichtenstein was an American arts administrator. He is best known for his 32-year tenure (1967–99) as president and executive producer of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, or BAM, as it became known under his leadership. He led the institution to a renaissance, championing contemporary performance, establishing the Next Wave Festival, and providing a vital venue for dance, theater, music, and collaborations that bridged disciplines. The long list of artists who came to perform on BAM's stages under Lichtenstein's purview reads like a Who's Who of 20th-century performance, and includes Laurie Anderson, Pina Bausch, Peter Brook, Merce Cunningham, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Jerzy Grotowski, Mark Morris, Steve Reich, Twyla Tharp, and Robert Wilson. When Lichtenstein retired, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation made the decision to honor his considerable accomplishments by foregoing its own naming rights and dedicating the BAM Harvey Theater in his honor.
Jodi Kantor is an American journalist. She is a New York Times correspondent whose work has covered the workplace, technology, and gender. She has been the paper's Arts & Leisure editor and covered two presidential campaigns, chronicling the transformation of Barack and Michelle Obama into the President and First Lady of the United States. Kantor was a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for her reporting on sexual abuse by Harvey Weinstein.
Alice S. Rossi was a pioneering American feminist and sociologist.
Ernestine Friedl was an American anthropologist, author, and professor. She served as the president of both the American Ethnological Society (1967) and the American Anthropological Association (1974–1975). Friedl was also the first female Dean of Arts and Sciences and Trinity College at Duke University, and was a James B. Duke Professor Emerita. A building on Duke's campus, housing the departments of African and African American Studies, Cultural Anthropology, the Latino/Latina Studies program, and Literature was named in her honor in 2008. Her major interests included gender roles, rural life in modern Greece, and the St. Croix Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin.
The Brooklyn Cultural District is a $100 million development project that focuses on the arts, public spaces and affordable housing in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, New York. The project reflected the joint efforts of New York City's Economic Development Corporation, the Department of Cultural Affairs, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the Department of City Planning, and the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership to continue to develop the Brooklyn neighborhood area. Joining the area's longtime institutional stakeholders are new homes for Mark Morris Dance Group, Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA), UrbanGlass and BRIC Arts and the BAM's Fisher Building.
Alan Bergman and Marilyn Keith Bergman were an American songwriting duo. Married from 1958 until Marilyn's death, together they wrote music and lyrics for numerous celebrated television, film, and stage productions. The Bergmans enjoyed a successful career, honored with four Emmys, three Oscars, and two Grammys. They are in the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Joseph V. Melillo was executive producer at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) from 1999 to 2018, and was named executive producer emeritus upon his departure. He is Columbia Artists' International Artistic Advisor, and was a 2019 Director’s Fellow at the Center for Ballet and the Arts at New York University.