Gaudium Award 2018
This year's honorees include:
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Brother Guy Consolmagno
Brother Guy Consolmagno, a member of the Society of Jesus, holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in Planetary Science from MIT as well as a PH.D. in the same area of study from the University of Arizona.A Detroit native, he was a post-doctoral fellow and lecturer at both Harvard College Observatory and MIT. He joined the US Peace Corps in 1983 teaching physics and astronomy in Kenya.
Following two years on the physics faculty of Lafayette College in Easton, PA, he entered the Jesuit order. Having studied philosophy and theology at Loyola University Chicago, Guy took vows as a Jesuit brother in 1991. He began his assignment to the Vatican Observatory in 1993.
A Fellow of the Meteoritical Society, Brother Consolmagno has served on the governing boards of that Society and the International Astronomical Union's Division III. In 2015, he became the chair of the Mars Nomenclature Task Group of the IAU Working group on Planetary Systems Nomenclature.
He has co-authored two astronomy books: Turn Left at Orion (1989) and Worlds Apart (1993). He is the author or co-author of four books exploring faith and science issues, including The Way to the Dwelling of Light (1998); Brother Astronomer (2000); God's Mechanics (2007) and Would You Baptize An Extraterrestrial? (2014).
Consolmagno's research explores the connections between meteorites and asteroids, and the origin and evolution of small bodies in the solar system. He has been honored for contributions to the study of meteorites and asteroids with the naming of asteroid 4597 Consolmagno.
In 2014, he received the Carl Sagan Medal for outstanding communication by an active planetary scientist to the general public by the American Astronomical Society/Planetary Sciences.
Pope Francis appointed him the Director of the Vatican Observatory.(vaticanobservatory.va) and serves as the President of the Vatican Observatory Foundation supporting scientific research. (www.vofoundation.org)
Andrea Marcovicci
Best known for her legendary 25 year run as the singer non pareil in the Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel, Andrea Marcovicci is a native New Yorker. Her mother, Helen Stuart was a singer and her father Eugene Marcovicci an internist.She debuted singing on The Merv Griffin Show and often performed on other television talk shows including The Johnny Carson Tonight Show.
Some will recall her acting career from her role on the television soap opera, Love is A Many Splendored Thing. However, it was her role in the film, The Front which garnered her a nomination for a Golden Globe as the New Star of the Year. Among the films she co-starred in, Someone to Love (1987) is notable as it marked the final screen appearance of Orson Welles.
Her numerous television acting guest appearances include Kojak, Magnum P.I., Taxi, Baretta, Mannix, Hill Street Blues, Trapper John, M.D. and was a regular on Berrenger's.
Although she has appeared onstage on Broadway, it is her cabaret career for which she has earned three lifetime achievement awards from music/cabaret organizations and the Mabel Mercer Foundation's highest award of excellence in the arts. Andrea has appeared in every major club and cabaret room here and abroad. Her career highlights include a sold-out solo concert in Carnegie Hall and several sold-out concerts in Town Hall.
She has recorded 19 albums celebrating the greatest composers and songs from The American Songbook. Andrea is also a mentor to new talent, a master teacher and director. She has written each of her over- to this date- 35 shows. In recognition of her art, she has received two honorary degrees from Trinity and Memphis Colleges
She will celebrate her 70th birthday in two special solo concluding performances at Feinstein's/54 Below on November 17th, 2018. (www.andreamarcovicci.com)
Peggy Noonan
Margaret Ellen “Peggy” Noonan was born in Brooklyn and grew up on Long island and in New Jersey. A graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson University, she began her career working as a radio news writer and later Editorial and Affairs Director in Boston. She was a daily CBS Radio commentary writer for Dan Rather at CBS News.
At the end of the 1970s, she was an adjunct professor of journalism at New York University. She became part of the White House staff during the Reagan presidency,credited with writing the now celebrated Pointe du Hoc and Challenger Explosion speeches Mr. Reagan delivered.
The famous Challenger speech about the aviators “who slipped the surly bonds of earth …and touched the face of God” has been ranked as one of the best political speeches of the 20th century. It is Ms. Noonan who coined the phrases “a kinder, gentler nation” and a "thousand points of light."
Currently a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, where her weekly column, Declarations has run since 2000. She is also the author of books on American politics, history and culture, notably: On Speaking Well (1999); When Character Was King (2001); What I Saw at the Revolution (1990); Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (1994) ; Patriotic Grace (2008); Simply Speaking (1998), The Time of Our Lives: Collected Writings (2015) and John Paul the Great: Remembering A Spiritual Father (2001) She was a consultant on the hit television series, The West Wing and in 2002 was nominated for a prime time Emmy as a co-writer for the special America: A Tribute to Heroes. She is an NBC political news analyst and has appeared in that role on CNN and CBS television.
In 2017, she was awarded The Pulitzer Prize for Commentary, for “rising to the moment with beautifully rendered columns that connected readers to the shared virtues of Americans during one of the nation's most divisive political campaigns.” (www.peggynoonan.com)
Sean Scully
Dublin born, London raised artist, Sean Scully has been a New Yorker for many years. Having received a graduate fellowship at Harvard, Mr. Scully pursued his internationally acclaimed career from both sides of the pond. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and A Guggenheim Fellowship. He has taught at the Parson School of Art, lectured at Harvard University and taught painting at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich. He was inducted into the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 2013.Twice nominated for the Turner Prize in Visual Arts, he is widely exhibited in Europe and the United States. Mr. Scully's work is held in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum, Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.
His work is represented also in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, The Art Institute in Chicago, the Tate in London and the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin.
Mr. Scully's paintings are often made of a number of abstract panels, grids of stripes and squares, based on repetition of discreetly nuanced blocks of color “resembling playing boards for games not yet invented or flags of imaginary countries”.
In 2006, the Met Museum in New York presented the first major exhibition of the Scully's Wall of Light paintings. The late renowned art critic and philosopher, Art Danto said of him: (he)”…belongs on the shortest of short lists of major painters of our time.” His photographs were first exhibited in Bilbao, Spain in 1997.
In the same year he was honored at the Venice Biennale and became the first western artist to have a retrospective in China, Scully completed the restored interior of the Santa Cecelia Chapel near the famous Monastery of Monserrat. (2015). (seanscullystudio.com)
Kathy and Bill Weigel
Kathy Gallagher Weigel, a native of Brooklyn, spent her formative years in Staten Island but returned to her birthplace to raise two daughters with her husband, Bill, fellow 2018 Award of Merit Honoree. A certified public accountant, Kathy's business career included working for Coopers and Lybrand, Shearson/American Express and Touche Ross. Her community service and volunteerism has been extensive – serving on the boards of Resources for Children with Special Needs, Heights and Hills, St. Joseph High School. Additionally, Kathy worked on committees for The Brooklyn Museum, Prospect Park Development Committee, Brooklyn Kindergarten Society, Cobble Hill Association. A long time religious education for children volunteer for the Oratory Church Community, she has been a soccer coach, part of Meals on Wheels and Packer Parents Association.
Bill Weigel was born and raised in Minnesota and became a New Yorker in 1974. A graduate of Princeton and Harvard Law, he practiced law for many years at Davis, Polk and Wardell LLP. Bill's commitment to service in the Oratory Church Community grew out of his life-long love of music and composing. He became one of the original members of the now celebrated Oratory Choir. This music commitment deepened as two of his liturgical scores premiered at Brooklyn's St. James Cathedral and St. Boniface Church. As part of the Weigels' over thirty years of active support of the Oratory, Bill has served as chair of the Lay Finance Committee since 2011. Reflecting the long musical tradition of lay Oratorian composers, Bill's chamber music compositions will be performed at both the Teatro Communale Luciano Pavarotti in Modena, Italy and New York's Carnegie Hall this fall.