This year's Martin E. Segal awards went to a unique pair: a quartet and a saxophone.
The Segal awards are given to emerging artists associated through Lincoln Center.
The winners, you dare ask? Well, they are none other than the JACK Quartet, a string ensemble founded at the Eastman School of Music, which hones in on contemporary music, and Melissa Aldana, a Chilean tenor saxophonist.
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and Jazz at Lincoln Center honored the pack at a luncheon at LC's Stanly H. Kaplan Penthouse on Thursday, where each received an award of $7,500 to be used for their career and studies (per The New York Times).
The prizes were first doled out in 1987, in which the endowment funding the award has provided nearly $250,000 to 56 artists.
The winner's circle includes cellist Alisa Weilerstein, choreographer Christopher Wheeldon and conductor Xian Zhang.
Per ArtsBeat, the awards came to be by Lincoln Center's board and a group of Mr. Segal's friends and colleagues upon his retiring as Chairman in 1986. Sadly he died in August 2012.
To wit, here's one from the Quartet:
And the saxophone of Aldana:
