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Inaugural Lifetime Arts Awards Presented to Three

Along with the reopening of Memorial Hall, the University has inaugurated the Carolina Performing Arts Lifetime Achievement Award, which will recognize “an alumnus or alumna, organization or other exceptional individual whose work in the performing arts has greatly contributed to life at the University and enriched American culture.”

The first recipients are Richard Adler ’43, Andy Griffith ’49 and Maxine Swalin.

Adler, of New York City, had a lengthy career composing for Broadway, ballet and orchestra and is best known as the composer and lyricist for The Pajama Game (1954) and Damn Yankees (1955). He also received the PlayMakers Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1999.

Griffith is one of television’s most enduring star performers. His career highlights include starring in the Broadway hit and subsequent movie, No Time for Sergeants. His most recognizable roles came on television in The Andy Griffith Show from 1960-68 and Matlock from 1986-95. Griffith was honorary chair of the Memorial Hall Transformation Steering Committee.

Swalin graduated from the University of Iowa and received musical training at institutions including Radcliffe College and The Juilliard School. In New York, she met her future husband, Benjamin Swalin, who taught in UNC’s music department. In 1935, the couple moved to Chapel Hill and learned that the fledgling N.C. Symphony Orchestra was in dire straights. The Swalins led a movement to revive the orchestra and succeeded in reorganizing the N.C. Symphony Society. The orchestra gained a firm footing with Benjamin Swalin as unpaid director and Maxine Swalin as a keyboard performer and accompanist.


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