This year’s winners represent the essence of the Alpert Award in the Arts. Wildly independent experimenters, they blow caution to the wind. Wherever their passions and ideas lead them is where they go. Artists working in a terrain that’s not known, not safe, they are continually challenging other artists and society as a whole with what they find.

Alpert Award winners wake up in the morning and have to write or paint, or make music, or dance or work out a problem. Totally dedicated to what they are making, they listen to a voice inside that has nothing to do with trends or approval. There’s a beauty to encountering these artists who are carving away all the ‘shoulds’ and leaving the real thing, which can make goose bumps, and have the hair crawl up the back of your neck. You may not know at first what is happening, but you can feel you’re being taken to another level.

As a musician, I had no idea where the road I was on would lead. When it became clear that I was the recipient of a wonderful dream that just kept going, I recognized I had a responsibility. And then there were the cuts of artists’ grants and attacks on free expression. So this unrestricted prize is a sort of thank you, a giving-back, for the blessings that I’ve had. Like the Alpert Award artists, each in their own ways, what we’re doing is passing it on. And what we’re receiving is challenging, and positive.

–Herb Alpert