Manhattan School of Music will confer honorary Doctor of Musical Arts degrees on five distinguished figures in the performing arts at its annual Commencement Ceremony on Thursday, May 21 at 1:00 PM at The Riverside Church in New York City.

Among the honorees are mezzo-soprano and MSM alumna J’Nai Bridges (BM ’09), former National Endowment for the Arts chairperson Jane Chu, former American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Misty Copeland, Tony Award-winning Broadway legend Donna McKechnie, and jazz pianist, composer, and MSM alumnus Jason Moran (BM ’97). Bridges will also deliver the Commencement Address.

Bridges is a three-time Grammy Award winner celebrated for her work at the Metropolitan Opera, Carnegie Hall, Houston Grand Opera, and Arena di Verona, among other leading stages. This season she made her house debut in the title role of “Carmen” at Teatro Real in Madrid and performed Maddalena in “Rigoletto” at the Met. A prominent voice in conversations around racial justice in classical music, she was named one of the Kennedy Center’s NEXT50 cultural leaders in 2022.

Moran, a MacArthur Fellow and recent inductee into the Academy of Arts and Sciences, has released 20 critically acclaimed recordings and composed scores for films including Ava DuVernay’s “Selma” and “13th.” Copeland made history in 2015 as the first Black woman promoted to principal dancer in ABT’s 75-year history, retiring from the company in 2025 after a quarter-century career. McKechnie, inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 2019, won a Tony Award for her performance as Cassie in “A Chorus Line” and was last seen on Broadway in “Wicked” in 2024.