There’s a lot to celebrate in Detroit these last few months, and the city’s rich arts scene is yet another of its accomplishments that’s being lifted in honor. Friday morning at One Campus Martius, the city of Detroit’s Office of Arts, Culture and Entrepreneurship (ACE) marked its fifth anniversary by announcing the 2024 Detroit ACE Honors winners, celebrating fine and performing artists who have given 25 years or more in service to Detroit arts. In a conversation with former WDIV-TV (Channel 4) anchor Carmen Harlan during the event, ACE director Rochelle Riley praised Mayor Mike Duggan for establishing the office in 2019 and said it’s her pleasure to fight for the city’s artists. “I’ve been to 28 countries,” Riley said. “We need to understand that we have the respect that we keep searching for, begging for, demand. People love Detroit. People know our Detroit artists; they are globally recognized. We don’t pay attention. So my job is to make sure people know we’re there.” Still, she acknowledged major misconceptions about Detroit in other parts of the country, especially among those who’ve never visited or come around in a long time. “(Some) still think it’s 1967. They still think that people burn cars, they still think that kids burn stuff on Halloween,” Riley said. “These are all things that have been attached to Detroit in a way that people don’t see Detroit. All you’ve got to do is get people here. I have friends who would not visit Detroit, (and) I finally got them to come. We rented a bed and breakfast … we went to the Motown Museum and went to a baseball game, and we had such fun, and they said, ‘This is how you live?!’ I said, ‘What did you think I was doing?’ “Everybody in Detroit doesn’t live in poverty. Everybody in Detroit doesn’t need help. And those of us who can help, we do that just like you’d do anyplace else. So, if we can get people to see the Detroit where we live, where we listen … Detroit has to claim it and own it. That’s what I want us to do.”
2024 Detroit ACE Honors recipients
2024’s class of ACE honorees include:
- Marion Hayden, a Detroit-born jazz bassist and educator mentored by master trumpeter Marcus Belgrave. Hayden has been performing since age 15 and has performed with such luminaries as Bobby McFerrin, Nancy Wilson, Regina Carter, David Alan Grier, James Carter, Joe Williams and more. She is a co-founder of the touring jazz ensemble Straight Ahead, the first all-woman jazz ensemble signed to Atlantic Records. Among her many other honors are a 2016 Kresge Artist Fellowship and a Jazz Hero Award bestowed by the Jazz Journalists Association the same year.
- Madelyn Porter, actress, storyteller, comedian and creator of several one-woman shows. She is connectivity and engagement manager for Detroit Public Theatre and was recently seen in Plowshares Theatre Co.’s “The House That Will Not Stand.” Porter, a recipient of the 2019 Kresge Arts in Detroit Creative Non-Fiction Literary Arts Award and honors from the YWCA and the National Organization of Women, is founder of Mad’s World LLC and Street Life Theatre Co.
- Pianist, composer, director and singer Alvin Waddles. He began studying piano at age 8 and has since played in over a dozen countries across several decades. Since 1995, he has served as director of music at Hope United Methodist in Southfield, and served as musical director for The Three Mo’ Tenors for over a decade. He has worked with some of the world’s finest musicians including Aretha Franklin, Margaret Hillis, Placido Domingo, Brazeal Dennard, George Shirley, Minister Thomas Whitfield, Anita Baker, Marcus Belgrave and Stephanie Mills.
- Master visual artist Hubert Massey, whose vibrant work can be found throughout metro Detroit. Massey is the only commissioned African American fresco artist in the U.S. Among his masterpieces are the 30-foot-high Hellenic mural at the Atheneum Hotel, the 18-foot-high frescoes at the Detroit Athletic Club, “Genealogy,” a 72-foot diameter terrazzo at the entrance to the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and “Detroit: Crossroad of Innovation,” a 30-by-30-foot permanent fresco at the Huntington Place convention center. A 2011 Kresge Fine Arts Fellow, Massey is also an art educator.
- George N’Namdi, art dealer, gallery owner and renowned curator and collector. An educator with master’s degrees in education and psychology, he
