Michael Newton to Be Honored

Michael Newton, former president of the Performing Arts Council of the Music Center, will be formally honored Monday in the Senate Caucus Room in Washington by the American Council for the Arts.

Before coming to Los Angeles in 1979, Newton served as president of the New York-based American Council, a national organization which promotes and strengthens the arts through advocacy and dissemination of information. Newton left the Music Center last Dec. 9 to undergo chemotherapy treatment for cancer. He officially resigned April 1.

The tribute to Newton, who receives the first National Arts Leadership award from the American Council for the Arts, reads in part:

“Michael Newton, born an Englishman but happily for us an American citizen by choice, has dramatically enhanced and enriched the arts in America. Wherever he has gone, whoever he has graced with his presence, he ‘wrote the book,’ always with a high sense of diplomacy and keen humor. . . .”

The tribute also cited his work for the Music Center “in building an arts performing center in the West for all the country to follow.”