Morgan Freeman, Mel Brooks to receive National Medal of Arts

Actors Mel Brooks, Morgan Freeman and Audra McDonald, composer Philip Glass and record producer Berry Gordy are among the recipients of the annual National Medal of Arts, which US President Barack Obama will confer at a ceremony at the White House on September 22.

Other honourees include author Sandra Cisneros, the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, musician Santiago Jimenez, Jr, playwright and director Moises Kaufman, dancer and choreographer Ralph Lemon, playwright and actor Luis Valdez and painter Jack Whitten, reports variety.com.

The National Council on the Arts, which oversees the National Endowment for the Arts, reviews nominations and sends recommendations to the president, who determines the honorees.

Also being honoured will be recipients of the National Humanities Medal - author Rudolfo Anaya, chef Jose Andres, author Ron Chernow, poet Louise Glück, radio host Terry Gross, composer and musician Wynton Marsalis, author James McBride, author Louis Menand, historian Elaine Pagels, the Prison University Project, physician Abraham Verghese, and journalist and author Isabel Wilkerson.

“I poured so much of myself into my personal life and when that wasn’t as fruitful as I hoped it 

would be and I extricated myself from that situation, I was able to realise I wasn’t honouring myself and my dreams and what I wanted in life,” Moore said.