Vanderbilt University Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos accepted the Tennessee Performing Arts Center’s highest tribute, the Applause Award, on behalf of the university at the center’s Annual Gala on Saturday, Aug. 29.
“Vanderbilt and TPAC are driven by similar missions. We both seek to enrich and strengthen our community through engagement with the arts,” Zeppos said. “Modes and models of creativity in the performing arts can be used across disciplines to allow for understanding ideas and initiating new ways of thinking about complex subjects that affect our neighborhood and our world. This sense of interconnectedness inspires Vanderbilt’s support of TPAC’s InsideOut of the Lunchbox and other programs. Our partnership provides additional opportunities for discovery that contribute to the intellectual and cultural life of our community.”
In recent years, TPAC has honored both an individual and a corporate leader with its Applause Award. This year, the individual award was presented to to Emmy and Tony Award-winning actress Cherry Jones.
“Vanderbilt’s commitment to the arts is exceptional, both academically and in terms of enrichment programs, including an active 11-year-old partnership with TPAC to present a free series of panel discussions to adults who live in our community,” Kathleen O’Brien, TPAC’s president and chief executive officer. “A native of Paris, Tennessee, Cherry Jones is widely regarded as one of the greatest Broadway stage actresses of our time. We are exceedingly proud to honor and celebrate their achievements. In different ways, both have advanced the arts and made them more accessible on the local, state and national level.”
In addition to honoring Vanderbilt’s and Jones’s distinguished contributions to the arts, TPAC celebrated the opening of a new season of arts and education.
Recent recipients of the Applause Award have included Dale Allen, Bank of America, John Ferguson, Eddie George, Tim McGraw, Nissan, Dolly Parton and Ted Welch.
Co-chairs for the event were Brenda Corbin, Susan Short Jones and Courtney Corbin-Simon. Proceeds will benefit TPAC Education, which has served more than 1.6 million adults and children—from pre-school through high school—over the past three decades.