DC Jazz Festival Founder and Executive Producer Charles Fishman Receives 2011 Distinguished Service to the Humanities Award

November 1, 2011 - Washington, DC — The DC Jazz Festival’s (DCJF) Founder and Executive Producer Charles Fishman has been presented with a 2011 Distinguished Service to the Humanities Award from the Humanities Council of Washington, DC. The award celebrates the area’s most creative innovators for increasing national awareness of some of the greatest achievements in Washington’s current creative culture.

Mr. Fishman, who was jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie’s personal manager and producer until his passing, recognized the importance of jazz in the tapestry of the District's history and culture, and founded an annual Duke Ellington Jazz Festival in 2005, which, in 2009,was renamed the DC Jazz Festival. The DCJF produces major concerts across the city at a host of renowned venues, such as the Kennedy Center, the National Mall, and the Warner and Lincoln Theatres, as well as in more than 40 museums, clubs, restaurants and galleries across the city.

The DCJF’s Roberta Flack Music Excellence Programenables thousands of DC Public School students to learn about, enjoy and appreciate jazz. By providing free concerts, workshops, and classes for local youth, the Festival is constantly encouraging innovation in the DC art scene.

Mr. Fishman was honored for his significant and enduring contributions to the arts and humanities at this year’s Humanities Council awards ceremony on October 13, entitled “Making DC Sizzle: A Celebration of Washington’s Creative Innovators.” Other distinguished honorees included Professor Ira Berlin, Tony Gittens, Philippa P.B. Hughes, Sharon Percy Rockefeller and Howard Shalwitz.

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About the DC Jazz Festival

With more than 100 performances in dozens of venues across the city, the DC Jazz Festival, a project of Festivals DC, Ltd., a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization, is the largest music festival in Washington, DC, is one of the most popular, highly-anticipated cultural events in the nation’s capital, and has quickly become recognized within the global jazz community. The DCJF presents year-round programs with performances featuring local, nationally and internationally acclaimed artists that promote music integration in school curricula, and actively support community outreach to expand and diversify its audience of jazz enthusiasts. For more information about the DC Jazz Festival and upcoming programs, visit www.dcjazzfest.org.

The DC Jazz Festival® is sponsored in part with a grant from the Government of the District of Columbia, Vincent C. Gray, Mayor; and, in part, by awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

© 2011 Festivals DC Ltd. All rights reserved.