Alumni Award

Since 1931, the Hotchkiss Alumni Association has honored 74 alumni with the annual Alumni Award. Selected by the nominating committee of the Board of Governors of the Alumni Association, each recipient, through personal achievement, has brought honor and distinction to him or herself and Hotchkiss.

The 2006 Honoree: Roswell H. Rudd Jr. '54

Roswell H. Rudd Jr., Class of 1954, is a world class jazz trombonist. Mr. Rudd grew up in Lakeville, Connecticut, and began playing the French horn at a young age. Introduced to jazz by his father, Roswell Rudd ’26, an amateur drummer, Rudd Jr. fell in love with that style of music. At age 11, upon discovering that jazz musicians of the time did not play the French horn, he began playing the trombone.

During Mr. Rudd’s years as a student at Hotchkiss (1950-1954), there was little in the way of an organized program in instrumental music. He did, however, find other students interested in jazz and, on his own, practiced in the boiler room so as not to disturb fellow students and faculty members. From Hotchkiss, he enrolled at Yale University, where he played with Eli’s Chosen Six, a student Dixieland band that went on to record for Columbia Records and tour nationally.

After graduating from Yale, Mr. Rudd moved to New York City where he became known for his work with groundbreaking groups and musicians like Herbie Nichols, the New York Art Quartet, Cecil Taylor, Archie Shepp, Carla Bley, and Steve Lacy, with whom he recorded and toured. In the 1970s and 1980s, he taught at Bard College, the University of Maine, and the New England Conservatory. He then moved to the Catskill region of New York State, where he focused on commercial work with area show bands.

In the mid-90s, Mr. Rudd returned to touring and recording and reunited with some of his earlier musical partners including Steve Lacy (Monk’s Dream – Universal/Verve), Archie Shepp (Live in New York – Universal/Verve), and the New York Art Quartet (35th Reunion – DIW).

Mr. Rudd has received international recognition as a performer and for his compositions and arrangements ranging from large scale music dramas to instrumental jazz suites. His trailblazing on the trombone has influenced an entire generation of trombonists who hear his extroverted gut bucket stylings as the modern incarnation of the New Orleans style. His musical interests, however, extend far beyond the world of jazz. He is passionate for the lyricism found in the tradition of American folk songs and ballads, and, after assisting Alan Lomax on and off for three decades with Lomax’s world song style project, was inspired to collaborate beyond the periphery of western music.

MALIcool, (Universal/Sunnyside) was recorded in Bamako, Mali, in 2001 with both Malian and American musicians. In 2004, Mr. Rudd brought his Trombone Shout Band to perform at the 4th Festival in the Desert in Essakane, Timbuctou, Mali. In 2005, he released Roswell Rudd and the Mongolian Buryat Band (Sunnyside). A national tour with that group will begin on November 4 of this year in Zankel Hall.

Mr. Rudd has been nominated for three Grammy Awards. In 2000, he was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in composition, awarded to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." In 2003, 2004, and 2005, he was voted Trombonist of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association. Most recently, he received a grant from the Asian Cultural Council to travel to China in May 2007 to continue a collaboration with composer/vocalist Liu Sola.

Mr. Rudd lives in New York State and continues to perform, compose, record, and give master classes.

Nominations

To nominate an alumnus or alumna, please contact
Sara Eddy '78
Director of Alumni Relations
(860) 435-3114
seddy@hotchkiss.org

Please provide as much information as possible about the nominee's background and accomplishments. A written statement about why the alumnus or alumna should be considered for the award would be appreciated. All materials will be forwarded to the Board of Governors Nominating Committee.

Previous Recipients

  • Alumni Award
  • 2005 - Jon Lovelace '44 - Chairman Emeritus and President, Capital Research and Management Company
  • 2004 - Ambassador Clark T. Randt, Jr. '64, P'09, U.S. Ambassador to China
  • 2003 - Bishop Peter J. Lee '66, P '92
  • 2002 - John Shedd Reed '35, P '73, '81, GP '85, '88, '05 - Railroad Executive, Philanthropist
  • 2001 - Lewis Henry Lapham II '52, P '99 - Journalist, Harper's Magazine
  • 2000 - George Cooley Hixon '55, P'90, '98 - Environmentalist
  • 1999 - Howard Cary Bissell '55, P'82 - Manufacturing
  • 1998 - Porter Johnston Goss '56, P'84, '88 - U.S. Representative from Florida
  • 1997 - Donald Boyd Easum '42 - Ambassador to Nigeria
  • 1996 - Strobe Talbott '64 - Journalist and Diplomat
  • 1995 - Charles Newton Schenck '40 - Lawyer, Long Wharf Theatre patron
  • 1994 - Zeph Stewart '39 - Classics Professor, Harvard
  • 1993 - John O'Hea Crosby '44 - Santa Fe Opera Company
  • 1992 - Edgar Meyer Cullman '36, P'64, GP'84 - Cullbro
  • 1991 - Francis Thomas Vincent, Jr. '56, P'85 - Baseball Commissioner
  • 1990 - George Francis Cahill, Jr. '44 - Medical Research Scientist
  • 1989 - Winston Lord '55 - Ambassador to China
  • 1988 - C.S. Harding Mott '25 - Philanthropist
  • 1987 - Woods McCahill '33, P'61,'69 - Lawyer
  • 1986 - Robert Arthur Bryan '49 - Archbishop of Maritimes
  • 1985 - Malcolm Baldrige '40 - Secretary of Commerce
  • 1984 - Eli Whitney Debevoise '17 - Lawyer, Debevoise & Plimpton
  • 1983 - Michael MacCracken Stewart '53 - Physician and Educator
  • 1982 - William Block '32, P'62,'71 - Newspaper Publisher
  • 1981 - David Lincoln Luke III '41 - President, Westvaco
  • 1980 - Jon Ormond Newman '49 - Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals
  • 1979 - William Elfers '37, P'67 - Venture capitalist
  • 1978 - John Henry Hammond, Jr. '29 - Discoverer of Dylan, Springsteen
  • 1977 - Frank Arnott Sprole '38, P'65,'73,'78, GP'89,'91,'01,'02,'03 - Vice Chairman, Bristol-Meyers
  • 1976 - John Miller Musser '26 - Philanthropist
  • 1975 - Gaylord Donnelley '27, P'60 - Chairman, RR Donnelley
  • 1974 - Peter Matthiessen '45 - Naturalist Author
  • 1973 - Joseph Frederick Cullman III '31, GP'82 - Chairman of Phillip Morris
  • 1972 - Dan Wende Lufkin '49, P'80,'82,'88 - CT Environmental Commissioner
  • 1971 - William Gelon McKnight, Jr. '30, P'58,'61 - Prominent lawyer
  • 1970 - Thomas Pearsall F. Hoving '49 - Director, Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • 1969 - Arthur Howe, Jr. '38, P'66,'72,'75 - President, American Field Service
  • 1968 - Atholl McBean 1900 - Founder, Stanford Research Institute
  • 1967 - Paul Henry Nitze '24, GP'82,'92,'96,'97 - Secretary of the Navy
  • 1966 - Charles Woodruff Yost '24, P'56,'64 - Diplomat, Ambassador to the UN
  • 1965 - Arthur Kittredge Watson '38, P'76,'78, GP'00 - Chairman of IBM, Ambassador to UK
  • 1964 - Albert William Olsen, Jr. '39 - Headmaster
  • 1963 - William Warren Scranton '35, P'65,'67 - Gov. of Pennsylvania, Ambassador to the UN
  • 1962 - Roswell Leavitt Gilpatric '24, P'56 - Deputy Secretary of Defense
  • 1961 - John Hersey '32 - Pulitzer Prize, Fiction
  • 1960 - Ernest Gruening '03 - Senator, Governor of Alaska
  • 1959 - Potter Stewart '33 - US Supreme Court Justice
  • 1958 - Robert Chapman Sprague '18 - Industrialist (executive)
  • 1957 - James Alexander Linen III '30, P'56,'62,'65,'68, GP '83,'84 - Executive Committee, TIME
  • 1956 - Livingston Talmadge Merchant '22 - Ambassador to Canada
  • 1955 - Dickinson Woodruff Richards, Jr. '13, GP'91 - Nobel Prize in Medicine
  • 1954 - Richard Lyon Bowditch '19, P'48 - Steamship Executive
  • 1953 - Henry Ford II '36, P'68 - President, Ford Motor Company
  • 1952 - Walter Phelps Hall '01, P'43 - Professor of History
  • 1951 - John Edward Bierwirth '13, P'42, GP'65, GGP'99,'00 - President, National Distillers
  • 1950 - Alfred Whitney Griswold '25, P'62 - President, Yale University
  • 1949 - Everett Needham Case '18 - President, Colgate University
  • 1948 - Edwin Foster Blair '20, P'55 - “Mr. Yale”, Instructor at Yale Law
  • 1947 - Erdman Harris '16 - Prominent Educator, Clergyman
  • 1946 - Douglas Stuart Moore '11 - Composer, Pulitzer Prize in Music
  • 1945 - No Award
  • 1944 - Artemus Lamb Gates '14 - President, NY Trust; Under Secretary of Navy
  • 1943 - Arthur Morris Collens 1899, P'30,'34 - President, Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance
  • 1942 - Archibald MacLeish '11 - Poet Laureate, Pulitzer Prize Winner
  • 1941 - Henry Lockwood de Forest 1893 - Lawyer
  • 1940 - Allen Lawrence Chickering 1894, GP'61 - Lawyer
  • 1939 - Arthur Lehman Goodhart '08, P'44 - Elite Professor, Oxford University
  • 1938 - William Mansfield Clark '03, GP'63 - Physiological Chemistry professor
  • 1937 - Charles Edison '09 - Gov. of New Jersey, son of inventor
  • 1936 - Harold Stanley '04, P'52,'55 - Investment Banker (Morgan Stanley)
  • 1935 - Henry Robinson Luce '16, GP'68 - Founder of TIME
  • 1934 - George Van Santvoord '08, P'37, GP'65,'71 - Headmaster
  • 1933 - Lawrence McCully Judd '06 - Governor of Hawaii
  • 1932 - Arthur Howe '08, P'38,'42, GP'66,'72,'75,'75 - President, Hampton Institute
  • 1931 - Henry Knox Sherrill '07 - Episcopal Bishop