Trinity Rep to honor Indigo Girls with Pell lifetime achievement award

TRINITY REPERTORY COMPANY says it will give the folk-rock duo Indigo Girls a lifetime achievement award at its annual Pell Awards Gala on June 3. / COURTESY TRINITY REPERTORY COMPANY
TRINITY REPERTORY COMPANY says it will give the folk-rock duo Indigo Girls a lifetime achievement award at its annual Pell Awards Gala on June 3. / COURTESY TRINITY REPERTORY COMPANY

PROVIDENCE – Trinity Repertory Company will be awarding the Indigo Girls with the 2019 Pell Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts at the 23rd annual Pell Awards Gala on June 3.

The award is named in honor of the late Claiborne Pell, who served as a Democratic U.S. senator from Rhode Island for six terms from 1961 to 1997. The theater company said the honor is in recognition of the folk-rock duo’s artistic achievements and advocacy.

Trinity said Amy Ray and Emily Saliers are activists who support immigrant rights, LGBTQ rights, gun control, Native American land rights, and they have supported abolishing the death penalty and support the Zapatistas, a far-left rebel group in the Mexican state of Chiapas.

“The Indigo Girls are extraordinary: two amazing musicians and two incredible citizens of the world. Amy and Emily combine the best of what we celebrate every year at the Pell Awards gala – lifelong artistic excellence and public service combined in the greatest artists living and working in America today,” said Curt Columbus, Trinity artistic director. “[The late Sen. Claiborne] Pell’s legacy is alive and well in these two women, and their singular body of work.”

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Ray and Saliers met in elementary school in Atlanta and began singing together professionally while in high school in 1980. They began recording in 1985 and toured and recorded independently until they were signed by Epic Records in 1988.

In 1989, they were nominated for a Grammy for best new artist, and took home the Grammy for best contemporary folk recording. Indigo Girls went on to receive multiple Grammy nominations, sell more than 15 million albums worldwide and record 15 studio releases along with many live releases and compilations.

Trinity Rep had previously announced several other award winners who will be honored at the Pell Gala:

  • Pell Award for Excellence in the Arts: Storyteller Valerie Tutson of Rhode Island Black Storytellers
  • Charles Sullivan Award for Distinguished Service in the Arts: Educator Deloris Davis Grant of Central Falls High School
  • Pell Award for Outstanding Leadership in the Arts: Rosanne Somerson, president of Rhode Island School of Design

Trinity Rep’s 2019 Pell Awards Gala will be held at the WaterFire Arts Center in Providence.

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