The five honorees for the 44th Kennedy Center Honors were announced today: Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels, opera singer Justino Díaz, actress and entertainer Bette Midler, singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, and Motown founder Berry Gordy will all receive the award for lifetime artistic achievement at this year’s gala.
The event will take place December 5 and will be broadcast on CBS at a later date. Due to the pandemic, the 2020 ceremony had to be postponed to June of this year, and the typically one-night event took place over the course of a week in a series of locales.
The Kennedy Center will begin celebrating its 50th anniversary in September, which is also when the space plans to re-open in full post-Covid.
Mimi Montgomery joined Washingtonian in 2018. She’s written for The Washington Post, Garden & Gun, Outside Magazine, Washington City Paper, DCist, and PoPVille. Originally from North Carolina, she now lives in Del Ray.
