On November 29th, 2010 Wynton Marsalis was presented with the first Aspen Institute Preston Robert Tisch Award in Civic Leadership. The program featured a conversation between Mr. Marsalis and Aspen Institute president Walter Isaacson.
Wynton Marsalis has helped propel jazz to the forefront of American culture. His prominent position in American culture was solidified in April 1997, when he became the first jazz artists to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize in music for his work Blood on the Fields, which was commissioned by Jazz director as well as music director the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra formerly organized benefit concerts and worked to focus national attention on the needs of his native city, New Orleans, after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
