Three selected for CU excellence in arts awards

The Cornell Council for the Arts and the Committee on the Arts of the Cornell University Council were scheduled to present three recipients with its 2001 university awards recognizing excellent in the arts at a dinner in the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts Wednesday evening, Oct. 17.

Alumnus Gene Saks '43 was selected to receive the 2001 Cornell Alumni Award for Distinction in the Arts. Saks is a noted director and actor who has won three Tony Awards and two Drama Desk Awards.

Long associated with the works of Neil Simon on Broadway, he has directed Matthew Broderick in Brighton Beach Memoirs, Alan Alda in Jake's Women and Kevin Spacey in Lost in Yonkers.

Saks is also a distinguished film director, coaching Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in The Odd Couple, Jane Fonda and Robert Redford in Barefoot in the Park and Ingrid Bergman and Goldie Hawn in Cactus Flower. As an actor he has appeared with Paul Newman in Nobody's Fool, Meg Ryan in I.Q. and Woody Allen in Deconstructing Harry.

Two students, recent graduates, were chosen to receive the Cornell University Student Art Award, which recognizes them for "outstanding undergraduate work in the arts."

Emily Green, a 2001 Cornell graduate, was a College Scholar with an interest in music, literature, art history and linguistics. An accomplished musician, Green has studied piano at Cornell, Ithaca College and at the Music Institute of Chicago. She has an extensive musical repertoire and has performed in Barnes Hall and with the Evanston Symphony Orchestra.

The second student is Lindsay Lyman-Clarke '01, who majored in textiles and apparel. Lyman-Clarke put her design talent to work both on campus and in the community. She has an eight-piece line set to premiere at the Cornell Design League Fashion Show this spring and has also done some costume design and stitching work for the theater productions at Cornell's Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. Lyman-Clarke provided the leadership on a student project that created a formalwear line called "Gala Exclusive" for a downtown retailer. These garments are for sale at Gala on the Ithaca Commons.

The students were to receive a money award from the chairman of the Committee on the Arts, Dr. Sidney Goldstein, at the awards dinner, and director Saks was to receive a glass sculpture of McGraw Tower, designed by glass artist Eric Hilton.