<\/p>\n
The College of the Arts will be presenting the University’s Distinguished Alumni Award at its annual Convocation on May 24 to alumna Melba Moore. Moore graduated from Montclair State in 1970 with a BA in Music. <\/p>\n
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Moore’s career has been prolific and legendary, as a TONY Award winner and four-time Grammy nominated recording artist. This May, Moore returns to her alma mater to inspire the soon-to-be graduates of 2016, as an successful artist and philanthropist.<\/p>\n
Moore began her performing career in 1967 in the original cast of the musical Hair<\/em> along with Ronnie Dyson and Diane Keaton. Moore replaced Keaton in the role of Sheila. In 1970, she won a Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of Lutiebelle in Purlie<\/em>. Following the success of Purlie<\/em>, Moore starred in the female lead role on Broadway\u2019s Les<\/em> Mis\u00e9rables<\/em>. Moore was the first and only African-American woman to perform the role. <\/p>\n In her recording career, Moore found critical and popular success with her debut albums I Got Love<\/em> and Look What You\u2019re Doing To The Man<\/em> and was nominated for a Grammy Award for \u2018Best New Artist\u2019 in 1971. Her work as a vocalist has garnered her three additional nominations. Moore also was the first female pop artist to perform a non-operatic solo concert at New York\u2019s Metropolitan Opera House. Her most recent single, \u201cLove Is\u201d was released in 2001.<\/p>\n As an epic musical artist with boundless talent, Moore is immersed in her philanthropy work, supporting communities and giving back. She worked with Dr. Dorothy I. Height and the National Council of Negro Women as their national membership chairwoman, and with Dr. C. Delores Tucker and the National Congress of Black Women.<\/p>\n Moore is also dedicated to helping the lives of children in need. As a member of the board at Hale House, she founded The Melba Moore Foundation for Children. Although the foundation is presently inactive, Moore remains committed to giving her time to organizations involved in aiding children.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Moore has starred in films including The Fighting Temptations<\/em> with Beyonc\u00e9 and Cuba Gooding Jr., and her film credits include Cotton Comes to Harlem<\/em>, Pigeons<\/em>, Hair<\/em>, Lost in the Stars<\/em>, and All Dogs Go to Heaven<\/em>. In addition, she starred or appeared in many television programs including The Melba Moore-Clifton Davis Show<\/em>, Ellis<\/em> Island<\/em>, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson<\/em>, The Love Boat<\/em>, Flamingo<\/em> Road<\/em>, Melba<\/em>, Falcon<\/em> Crest<\/em>, The American Women<\/em> and Portrayals of Courage<\/em>. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n With countless hits and spanning genres from disco, R&B, and rock, Moore was inducted to the Official Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in 2015, and received the prestigious 2015 Sandy Hosey Lifetime Achievement Award during the Artists Music Guild awards. In 2015 she also headlined \u201cForever Moore\u201d at Feinstein\u2019s 54\/Below and returned again last January. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The College of the Arts will be presenting the University’s Distinguished Alumni Award at its annual Convocation on May 24 to alumna Melba Moore. Moore graduated from Montclair State in 1970 with a BA in Music. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":116354,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-announcements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/arts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}