The Mellon Foundation has recognised distinguished cellist Akua Dixon and double bassist Reggie Workman in the inaugural cohort
The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has announced a $35 million initiative for the cultural preservation of jazz. Central to this is the $15 million Jazz Legacies Fellowship, honouring the lifetime contributions of artists that represent ‘the pinnacle of creative achievement, technical mastery, and boundary-pushing expression’.
20 musicians have been recognised in the 2025 inaugural cohort, including cellist Akua Dixon, 76, and double bassist Reginald ‘Reggie’ Workman, 87. Each receive a lifetime achievement award and an unrestricted grant of $100,000, as well as tailored resources for personal and professional support.
Dixon is graduate of New York’s High School of Performing Arts, studying cello with Benar Heifetz, and has been a multi-laureate of the National Endowment for the Arts for both performance and composition. She is the founder of the Grammy Award-winning Quartette Indigo, and has performed with artists including Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Max Roach, and Lionel Hampton. Her string arrangements appear on Aretha Franklin’s Grammy-nominated album A Rose Is Still a Rose and Lauryn Hill’s album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, which won five Grammy Awards. Dixon is also a conductor and educator.
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Workman is a double bassist known for styles including avant-garde jazz, bop, hard bop, and post-bop. He has performed with numerous ensembles, including the John Coltrane Quartet, Top Shelf, Trio Transitions, TRIO 3, and the Reggie Workman Ensemble. Workman is a professor at the New School College of Performing Arts in New York, and was named a Living Legend by Philadelphia’s African-American Historical and Cultural Museum. He is a recipient of the Eubie Blake Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship for music composition, and received the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Fellowship in 2020.
‘Jazz is a quintessentially American art form, central to our vast and varied American culture, and this initiative rightly and broadly honours the work of those who continue to drive the evolution of jazz while also safeguarding its histories,’ said Mellon Foundation president Elizabeth Alexander. ‘We at Mellon are proud to join the Jazz Foundation of America in recognizing the artists, scholars, and community coalitions that continue to amplify our understanding and appreciation of this dynamic musical form and the deep generational knowledge that will accumulate from it long into the future.’
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