Bill Ivey, former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts and head of a prominent center at Vanderbilt University, was presented with a lifetime award from the NAMM, an international association representing the global music products industry.
Ivey was honored Saturday at the 2009 Summer NAMM show with NAMM’s “Music for Life” award. The award is the highest honor that NAMM bestows and recognizes extraordinary contributions to the mission of creating more active music makers.
“Mr. Ivey is a great champion of music and the arts,” said Joe Lamond, president and CEO of NAMM. “It is amazing to think about how many lives he has touched by his personal efforts to preserve and support these cultural endeavors.”
Ivey is director of Vanderbilt’s Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy, an arts policy research center with offices in Nashville and Washington, D.C. Ivey also directs the Curb Center’s Washington-based program for senior government career staff, the Arts Industries Policy Forum, and serves as senior consultant to Leadership Music, a professional development program serving Nashville’s music community.
Ivey served as team leader for arts and humanities in the Obama-Biden presidential transition. His book, Arts, Inc.: How Greed and Neglect Have Destroyed Our Cultural Rights, was published by the University of California Press in 2008.
From May 1998 through September 2001, Ivey served as the seventh chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. Following years of controversy and significant reductions in NEA funding, Ivey’s leadership is credited with restoring Congressional confidence in the work of the NEA. Ivey’s Challenge America Initiative, launched in 1999, has to date garnered more than $15 million in new Congressional appropriations for the Arts Endowment.
Prior to government service, Ivey was director of the Country Music Foundation. He was twice elected board chairman of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and is immediate past president of the American Folklore Society. Ivey holds degrees in history, folklore, and ethnomusicology, as well as honorary doctorates from the University of Michigan, Michigan Technological University, Wayne State University and Indiana University. He is a four-time GRAMMY award nominee (Best Album Notes category), and is the author of numerous articles on U.S. cultural policy, and on folk and popular music.
About NAMM
NAMM is the not-for-profit association that unifies, leads and strengthens the $17 billion international musical instruments and products industry. NAMM’s activities and programs are designed to promote music making to people of all ages. NAMM is comprised of approximately 9,000 member companies. For more information about NAMM or the proven benefits of making music, visit www.namm.org or call 800-767-NAMM (6266).
Media Contact: Jim Patterson, (615) 322-NEWS
Jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu
Kymberly Drake, (760) 438-8007
kymberlyd@namm.org