WARREN BEATTY, OSSIE DAVIS AND RUBY DEE, ELTON JOHN, JOAN SUTHERLAND AND JOHN WILLIAMS TO RECEIVE HONORS DURING "THE 27TH ANNUAL KENNEDY CENTER HONORS: A CELEBRATION OF THE PERFORMING ARTS"

The Gala Will Be Taped Dec. 5 for a Late December Broadcast on the CBS Television Network

CBS Has Broadcast the Kennedy Center Honors Each Year Since its Debut

Actor, producer, writer and director Warren Beatty, husband-and-wife actors, writers and producers Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, singer and composer Elton John, soprano Joan Sutherland, and composer and conductor John Williams will receive honors for the year 2004, on THE 27th ANNUAL KENNEDY CENTER HONORS: A CELEBRATION OF THE PERFORMING ARTS, to be presented on Sunday, Dec. 5 and broadcast on the CBS Television Network in late December for the 27th consecutive year.

The 2004 Honorees will be saluted by stars from the world of the performing arts at a gala performance in the Kennedy Center's Opera House on Dec. 5 that will be attended by the President of the United States and Mrs. Bush, additional dignitaries, as well as by artists from around the world.

The President and the First Lady will receive the Honorees and members of the Artists Committee, who nominate them, along with the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees at the White House on Dec. 5, prior to the gala performance. The Kennedy Center Honors ribbons will be bestowed the night before the gala (Dec. 4), at a State Department dinner, hosted by Secretary of State Colin Powell.

"This year the Kennedy Center honors not the usual five but six extraordinary individuals whose unique and abundant artistry has contributed significantly to the cultural life of our nation and the world," said Kennedy Center Chairman Stephen A. Schwarzman. "They are a film artist whose talents are astonishingly diverse, a greatly revered couple of stage and screen, a pop music icon who also composes stunning musical film and theater scores, an operatic superstar of unsurpassed artistic achievement and one of the most influential American composers of the past four decades."

The Honors recipients are selected each year by the Board of Trustees of The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The recipients are recognized for their lifetime contributions to American culture through the performing arts in dance, music, theater, opera, motion pictures and television. The primary criterion in the selection process is excellence. The Honors are not designated by art form or category of artistic achievement. The selection process, over the years, has produced a balance among the various arts and artistic disciplines.

Michael M. Kaiser, President of the Center, expressed the Center�s gratitude to the many individuals involved in the success of the Honors program. "In addition to recognizing our most treasured artists, the Kennedy Center Honors Gala also extensively supports the many performing arts initiatives, education and public service programming and national outreach efforts that make the Center�s presentations accessible to all."

George Stevens Jr., who created the Honors in 1978 with Nick Vanoff, will produce and co-write the show for the 27th consecutive year. The Honors telecast has been honored with five Emmy's for Outstanding Program as well as the Peabody Award for Outstanding Contribution to Television.