Curious: more than five months after initial announcement, MAS adds another Onassis Medal winner. Was this to distract from "supertall" blind spot?

This seems a bit curious. Three days ago, on Oct. 6, the Municipal Art Society sent an email with this subject line: "Jon Batiste Joins the 2022 Onassis Medal Honoree Lineup."

"MAS is delighted to announce that the incomparable Jon Batiste will receive the 2022 Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Medal alongside fellow honorees, Clara Wu Tsai & Joe Tsai and Earl D. Weiner!" stated the lead sentence, pointing to the Nov. 9 gala. (See more below.)

The multi-talented Batiste, perhaps best-known for serving as band leader for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert until August, was honored in June by the Brooklyn Public Library, along with his wife Suleika Jaouad. The citation noted, "He has also spent much of his career bringing music back to where it started —including on the steps of the Central Library in celebration of Juneteenth with Sing for Hope, and in the opening season of BPL’s Dweck Center in 2008."

While it's not surprising that MAS might honor Bastiste, the timing seems odd. MAS circulated its original "Save the date" notice on 4/21/22, more than five months earlier.

Some speculation

What happened in between? No explanation was given, so we must speculate. 

It's possible that Batiste had been on the short list but tough to reach. It's possible that MAS had been reminded that, given the city's demographics and the post-George Floyd reckoning, it's unwise to not include a Black recipient. (Last year, one of the four honorees was Black.)

It's also possible that MAS, after reading my Sept. 26 criticism in CommonEdge of the choice of Joe Tsai and Clara Wu Tsai, In Honoring Philanthropists with the Onassis Medal, the MAS Forgets Its Crusade Against Supertalls, sought to distract from potential criticism. (Also see this blog.)

Even if the latter was not the main reason, it's surely an outcome.

More from the announcement

From the MAS:

Jon Batiste is one of history’s most brilliant, prolific, and accomplished musicians. Batiste studied and received both a BA and MFA at the world-renowned Juilliard School in New York City. From 2015 until this August, Batiste was bandleader and musical director of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS. In 2018, he received a Grammy nomination for Best American Roots Performance and in 2020, he received two Grammy nods for the albums: Chronology Of A Dream: Live At The Village Vanguard and Meditations, with Cory Wong. In 2020, he won an Academy Award for Best Original Score for the Disney/Pixar film Soul, an honor he shared with fellow composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Jon’s work on Soul also earned him a Golden Globe, BAFTA, NAACP Image Award, and a Critic’s Choice Award. He is the second Black composer in history, after legendary jazz musician Herbie Hancock, to win an Academy Award for composition. Batiste’s latest studio album, We Are, was released in March 2021 to overwhelming critical acclaim. Subsequently, he was nominated for eleven Grammys across seven different categories, a first in Grammy history. He went on to win five of those Grammys including Album of the Year.

Jon Batiste’s efforts over the past two years to give a voice to the cause of civil and racial justice have resonated in New York City and around the country. His “We Are” campaign shed light on Black Lives Matter and issues of systemic racism through concerts and marches. And Batiste’s presence across New York City as the pandemic has played out—taking his joyful music to the streets—has been uplifting and inspiring. Batiste helped make New York more resilient and consequently better able to face the challenges ahead as we envision a richer, stronger post-COVID New York.