Wadada Leo Smith, musician and composer, receives UCLA Medal

To pay tribute to a decades-long career as genre-defying composer, musician and artist with a commitment to breaking barriers, Wadada Leo Smith was presented with the UCLA Medal, the campus's highest honor. "There's an oft-quoted saying that 'writing about music is like dancing about architecture,'" said UCLA Chancellor Gene Block in remarks introducing Smith on Nov. 8. "If that's true, then giving a speech about Wadada Leo Smith is like swimming about astronomy. "When your work has been described as a 'cosmology' and a 'spiritual meditation about creation in the grand intergalactic sense,' then the simple words 'musician' and 'composer' somehow seem far too limiting," Block continued. "Smith is a category-defying artist, both working within and transcending genres such as blues, jazz, experimental and classical." Established in 1979, the UCLA Medal is the highest honor bestowed upon an individual by UCLA. It is awarded to those who have earned academic and professional acclaim, and whose work demonstrates the highest ideals of UCLA.