On December 4, 2022, the Kennedy Center held their 45th annual Honors celebrating the lifetime artistic achievements of rockers U2, R&B star Gladys Knight, actor George Clooney, composer and conductor Tania Leon, and Christian music singer Amy Grant.

The gala event that saw numerous stars paying homage to the honourees, will be edited down to two hours for a television broadcast on December 28.

The Kennedy Center Honors awards its honourees for a lifetime of “extraordinary talents” and while there are some names missing from the list including Liza Minelli, and Denzel Washington; the list over the past 45 years is an impressive one…

Previous Kennedy Center Honors recipients:
Justino Diaz
Berry Gordy

Lorne Michaels

Bette Midler

Joni Mitchell

Debbie Allen

Joan Baez

Garth Brooks

Midori

Dick Van Dyke

Earth, Wind & Fire (musical group; Philip Bailey, Verdine White, Ralph Johnson)

Sally Field

Linda Ronstadt
“Sesame Street”
Michael Tilson Thomas

Cher

Philip Glass

Reba McEntire

Wayne Shorter

“Hamilton” co-creators: Lin-Manuel MirandaThomas KailAndy Blankenbuehler, and Alex Lacamoire

Carmen de Lavallade

Gloria Estefan

LL COOL J

Norman Lear

Lionel Richie

Martha Argerich

Eagles

Al Pacino

Mavis Staples

James Taylor

Carole King

George Lucas

Rita Moreno

Seiji Ozawa

Cicely Tyson

Al Green

Tom Hanks

Patricia McBride

Sting

Lily Tomlin

Martina Arroyo

Herbie Hancock

Billy Joel

Shirley MacLaine

Carlos Santana

Buddy Guy

Dustin Hoffman

David Letterman

Natalia Makarova

Led Zeppelin

Barbara Cook

Neil Diamond

Yo-Yo Ma

Sonny Rollins

Meryl Streep

Merle Haggard

Jerry Herman

Bill T. Jones

Sir Paul McCartney

Oprah Winfrey

Mel Brooks

Dave Brubeck

Grace Bumbry

Robert De Niro

Bruce Springsteen

Morgan Freeman

George Jones

Barbra Streisand

Twyla Tharp

Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey of The Who

Steve Martin

Diana Ross

Leon Fleisher

Martin Scorsese

Brian Wilson

Andrew Lloyd Webber

Zubin Mehta

Dolly Parton

Smokey Robinson

Steven Spielberg

Tony Bennett

Suzanne Farrell

Julie Harris

Robert Redford

Tina Turner

Warren Beatty

Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee

Sir Elton John

Joan Sutherland

John Williams

James Brown

Carol Burnett

Loretta Lynn

Mike Nichols

Itzhak Perlman

James Earl Jones

James Levine

Chita Rivera

Paul Simon 

Elizabeth Taylor

Julie Andrews 

Van Cliburn

Quincy Jones

Jack Nicholson

Luciano Pavarotti

Mikhail Baryshnikov

Chuck Berry

Plácido Domingo

Clint Eastwood

Angela Lansbury

Victor Borge

Sean Connery

Judith Jamison

Jason Robards

Stevie Wonder

Fred Ebb & John Kander

Willie Nelson

André Previn

Shirley Temple Black

Lauren Bacall

Bob Dylan

Charlton Heston

Jessye Norman

Edward Villella

Edward Albee

Benny Carter

Johnny Cash

Jack Lemmon

Maria Tallchief

Jacques d’Amboise

Marilyn Horne

Riley B.B. King

Sidney Poitier

Neil Simon

Kirk Douglas

Aretha Franklin

Morton Gould

Harold Prince

Pete Seeger

Johnny Carson

Arthur Mitchell

Georg Solti

Stephen Sondheim

Marion Williams

Lionel Hampton

Paul Newman

Joanne Woodward

Ginger Rogers

Mstislav Rostropovich

Paul Taylor

Roy Acuff

Betty Comden

Adolph Green

Fayard Nicholas

Harold Nicholas

Gregory Peck

Robert Shaw

Dizzy Gillespie

Katharine Hepburn

Rise Stevens

Jule Styne

Billy Wilder

Harry Belafonte

Claudette Colbert

Alexandra Danilova

Mary Martin
William Schuman

Alvin Ailey

George Burns

Myrna Loy

Alexander Schneider

Roger L. Stevens

Perry Como

Bette Davis

Sammy Davis, Jr.

Nathan Milstein

Alwin Nikolais

Lucille Ball

Ray Charles

Hume Cronyn

Jessica Tandy

Yehudi Menuhin

Antony Tudor

Merce Cunningham

Irene Dunne

Bob Hope

Alan Jay Lerner

Frederick Loewe

Beverly Sills

Lena Horne

Danny Kaye

Gian Carlo Menotti

Arthur Miller

Isaac Stern

Katherine Dunham

Elia Kazan
Frank Sinatra

James Stewart

Virgil Thomson

George Abbott

Lillian Gish

Benny Goodman

Gene Kelly

Eugene Ormandy

Count Basie

Cary Grant

Helen Hayes

Jerome Robbins

Rudolf Serkin

Leonard Bernstein

James Cagney

Agnes deMille

Lynn Fontanne

Leontyne Price

Aaron Copland

Ella Fitzgerald

Henry Fonda

Martha Graham

Tennessee Williams

Marian Anderson

Fred Astaire

George Balanchine

Richard Rodgers

Arthur Rubinstein