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Falletta to receive Norton Medal
JoAnn Falletta, music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, will receive the Chancellor Charles P. Norton Medal, UB’s highest award, during the university’s 165th general commencement on May 15.
During the general commencement ceremony, SUNY honorary degrees will be awarded to psychiatrist and health care entrepreneur Ronald I. Dozoretz, MD ’62 & BA ’57, and higher education advocate Arthur E. Levine, PhD ’76. Dozoretz will receive a doctor of science degree; Levine a doctor of humane letters.
The Norton medal is presented annually in public recognition of a person who has, in Norton’s words, “performed some great thing which is identified with Buffalo…a great civic or political act, a great book, a great work of art, a great scientific achievement or any other thing which, in itself, is truly great and ennobling, and which dignifies the performer and Buffalo in the eyes of the world.”
Since taking the podium as music director of the BPO in 1999, JoAnn Falletta has brought the BPO to a new level of national and international prominence. She placed a renewed emphasis on recording, and the orchestra released 12 discs on the NAXOS label over the course of 10 years. These recordings garnered two Grammy Awards—a first for the BPO—as well as nine Grammy nominations, and made the BPO one of the most frequently recorded orchestras in the country.
In 2004, Falletta led the BPO in a critically acclaimed performance at Carnegie Hall in New York City; last season, she took the BPO in its first multi-city tour since 1988, the successful five-city “Florida Friends Tour” in March 2010.
Falletta has worked extensively in the Western New York community, fostering meaningful partnerships with nonprofit groups in both the cultural and social-service sectors, among them AIDS Community Services, Olmsted Parks, the Buffalo Gay Men’s Chorus, the Darwin Martin House, the Burchfield Penney Arts Center, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery and Shea’s Performing Arts Center.
She also makes guest appearances with student organizations and educational groups, including the UB Symphony, the Greater Buffalo Youth Orchestra, Leadership Buffalo, the Canisius MBA Alumni Group and the Erie County Music Educators Association.
Falletta is the recipient of some of the most prestigious awards for conductors, including the Seaver/National Endowment for the Arts Conductors Award for exceptionally gifted American conductors; the Stokowski Competition; the Toscanini, Ditson and Bruno Walter awards for conducting, as well as the American Symphony Orchestra League’s John S. Edwards Award.
A distinguished psychiatrist, pioneering health care entrepreneur and renowned national leader for behavioral health quality and access, honorary degree recipient Ronald I. Dozoretz is founder and chairman of Value Options Inc., one of the nation’s leading behavioral health and wellness companies.
He also is founder, chairman and CEO of GenOmind LLC, a company specializing in personalized medicine for behavioral health, as well as founder of two other large hospital corporations and numerous other health care companies.
A noted leader in setting health care industry standards and policy, Dozoretz has advised the White House on health care policy during several administrations. He has held numerous positions with prominent health care organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association and the National Association of Psychiatric Health Systems. Among his many key leadership roles, he has served on the advisory board for RAND Health and on the board of directors of both the National Health Policy Council and the National Foundation for Mental Health.
A leading advocate of higher education and school equity reform, Arthur E. Levine has been president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation since 2006.
Previously president and professor of education at Teachers College, Columbia University, he also has been chair of the Institute for Educational Management at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, president of Bradford College and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Carnegie Council on Policy Studies in Higher Education.
Levine has demonstrated an enduring commitment to educational excellence and access throughout his distinguished career. He has garnered significant national recognition for his efforts to bridge the educational achievement gap between Americans of different races and financial means, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the American Council on Education’s Book of the Year award and numerous honorary degrees.
A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he has authored 11 books and scores of articles and reviews, including a noted series of reports on the preparation of school leaders, teachers and education researchers.
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