+Award Gala 2026

We invite you to join us for cullen+them’s annual +Award Gala honoring Samora Pinderhughes, and co-chaired by cullen+them board members Zaire Baptiste, Melanie Cohn-Zawadzki, and Kim Cullen. The +Award honors individuals whose presence and life work contributes to positive social change, and we are thrilled to have Samora be this year’s recipient.

Samora Pinderhughes is a multidisciplinary artist, composer, pianist/vocalist and filmmaker known for striking vulnerability and carefully crafted, radically honest art. He is also known for using his art to examine sociopolitical issues and fight for change. Pinderhughes is the first-ever Art for Justice + Soros Justice Fellow and a recipient of Chamber Music America’s 2020 Visionary Award. He has also been designated as a Creative Capital awardee, a United States Artists Fellow, and a Sundance Composers Lab fellow. He was the 2025 MoMA Adobe Creative Resident and was awarded the “Spark of Change” Award from APAP in 2026. Pinderhughes is an alumnus of YoungArts, a graduate of The Juilliard School and is currently getting his Ph.D. at Harvard University in the Creative Practice and Critical Inquiry program under the direction of Vijay Iyer. Pinderhughes is also the Artistic & Executive Director of The Healing Project, a community arts organization that creates narrative change and collective healing in partnership with individuals impacted by structural violence to build a world based around healing rather than punishment.