Voice Arts® Awards Announces Honorary Award Winners Ahead of December 20th Gala Livestream

NEW YORK, Dec. 15, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The Society for Voice Arts and Sciences (SOVAS™) announces 2020's honorary award recipients ahead of the 7th Annual Voice Arts® Awards recognizing exceptional talent in the voiceover industry, and inaugural livestream of the gala event.

The Voice Arts® Awards celebrate the traditional craft categories as well as those who use their voices to uplift the voiceless and to affect change when change must come. This year, we honor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the distinguished educator, prolific author, cultural critic, journalist, and documentary filmmaker whose numerous essential works include the Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross, and the popular PBS series Finding Your Roots. Gates will receive the Muhammad Ali Voice of Humanity Honor, presented by his longtime friend and chair of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University, Glenn Hutchins. 

Tom Kenny will present the Voice Arts Icon Award for Arts and Humanities to the legendary Mark Hamill in celebration of his decades of achievement in voice acting. In addition to a body of voice acting work that spans five decades and includes such beloved characters as Fire Lord Ozai, Master Eraqus, Skips, Darth Bane, and, inimitably, The Joker, SOVAS salutes Hamill's tireless commitment to charity work and speaking out against social injustice.

Called "the Oscars of voiceover acting" by Good Morning America, the Voice Arts® Awards honor the very best voice acting performances of 2020 in animation, video games, commercials, audiobook narration, dubbing, and more. Previous award winners include James Earl Jones, Phil Lamarr, Manuela Testolini, Ving Rhames, Jon Hamm, Nancy Cartwright, Sigourney Weaver, Rosario Dawson, Lily Tomlin, Van Jones, and William Shatner.

Among this year's many deserving nominees for outstanding performances in the voice arts are R.C. Bray, David Sedaris, Dascha Polanco, Jas Patrick, Julia Whelan, Joe Zieja, and Kate Mulgrew.  And this year's event will feature a special performance by Chicago star Lana Gordon.

The Voice Arts® Awards Gala will be held this year on December 20^th, 2020 and, for the first time ever, will be streaming live from New World Stages in New York City. While we will miss presenting the awards before a live audience, we are thrilled to be able to share this gala event with fans of the voice arts worldwide!

This year's Voice Arts® Awards sponsors include Pandora, Kaotica, Comcast NBC Universal, Telemundo, LA Vocal Booths, PBS, and CBS2 Los Angeles.               

Visit http://www.sovas.org/ for streaming information and a complete list of the 2020 Voice Arts® Awards nominees.

SOURCE Society of Voice Arts and Sciences

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https://www.sovas.org