[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 45 (Tuesday, April 11, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Page S2522]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         RESIGNATION OF LARRY WILKER, KENNEDY CENTER PRESIDENT

 Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, a few days ago, the president of 
the Kennedy Center, Lawrence J. Wilker, announced that he will resign 
his position at the Center at the end of this year. He plans to launch 
a new Internet entertainment company, and I know that he will bring the 
same ability, energy, and enthusiasm to that initiative as he brought 
to the Kennedy Center.
  Larry Wilker has been a superb president for the Kennedy Center over 
the past decade. He has made outstanding improvements in the Center's 
facilities and its programming. He has led the Center effectively 
during a time of significant growth and expansion. One of his most 
impressive achievements has been the creation of the Millennium Stage, 
which offers free performances every afternoon at the Center.
  I know that Larry Wilker will continue to be a leader in the national 
performing arts community and an enduring part of the Kennedy Center, 
and I wish him well in his important and pioneering new undertaking.
  Today's Washington Post contains an excellent editorial praising 
Larry and his many contributions to the Kennedy Center and the arts in 
the nation. I ask that the editorial may be printed in the Record.
  The article follows:

               [From the Washington Post, April 11, 2000]

                       A Kennedy Center Departure

       Lawrence Wilker, president of the Kennedy Center since 
     1991, is taking off for the dot-com world, leaving an 
     institution more vital and deeper in talent than before his 
     arrival. Former chairman James Wolfensohn, who hired Mr. 
     Wilker, did much to set the direction of the center toward 
     showcasing national and regional arts, livelier relations 
     with the local scene and a strong focus on arts education. 
     Under Mr. Wilker and center chairman James Johnson those 
     changes deepened and took institutional hold. Signs of this 
     emphasis range from the hugely popular free ``Millennium 
     State'' events daily at 6 p.m. in the Grand Foyer--catering, 
     as often as not, to a jeans-and-sweaters crowd--to the 
     splashy black-tie gala that marked the unveiling of a 
     refurbished Concert Hall in 1997.
       Outreach doesn't accomplish much if the quality isn't there 
     to back it up. That lesson also has reverberated in the 
     Wilker era with the arrival of recognized names such as the 
     Washington Opera's Placido Domingo and the National Symphony 
     Orchestra's Leonard Slatkin. Mr. Wilker's own background in 
     theater production bolstered Kennedy Center sponsorship of 
     the Fund for New American Plays, which distributes as much as 
     $25,000 (gleaned mostly from corporate sources) for 
     production of promising works by young playwrights all over 
     the nation--some of which end up in Washington, some not.
       Mr. Wilker says his Internet venture will make arts and 
     entertainment more widely available. His Kennedy Center 
     tenure has been, in large measure, an exercise in that same 
     mission, and one that has achieved success--despite being 
     waged not on the Net but in the clunkier coin of bricks, 
     mortar and federal budget battles.

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