Singer, songwriter, author and human rights activist Brandi Carlile will be honored with the Los Angeles Press Club’s Visionary Award for Humanitarian Work.
The ceremony will take place at the National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards Gala on December 6 at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, downtown Los Angeles.
The Visionary Award was instituted in 2012 to honor individuals within the entertainment industry who use their high-profile status to make the world a better place and to spread information about issues of freedom and social justice. Jane Fonda was the very first recipient, introduced by Robert Redford.
Brandi Carlile is not merely an Oscar nominee, 11-time Grammy winner, two-time Emmy winner and #1 New York Times bestseller list author — she is the living embodiment of the award’s meaning. Since the beginning of her career, Brandi has dedicated a portion of her ticket sales to fund her Looking Out Foundation – a grassroots organization with a mission to make music mean more. Through this effort, Carlile’s foundation has granted over $10 million to community-based nonprofit organizations working to support humanitarian causes across the globe. Carlile has bolstered these efforts through the creation of her wine club, XOBC Cellars, which also sends proceeds to Looking Out Foundation, helping them to defend the rights and joys of refugees, immigrants, the LGBTQIA2S+ community, and more.
“We are excited to have Brandi Carlile as this year’s Visionary Awardee. Her work is amazing and, during these troubling times, desperately needed,” said Los Angeles Press Club President Danny Bakewell, Jr. “Topical songs like ‘The Joke,’ ‘Human’ and ‘Church & State’ have spoken to her vision for social justice, as well as providing a showcase for one of the great voices in contemporary music. Her eagerness to reach out has led her to collaborate closely with figures like Elton John and Joni Mitchell, but that spirit isn’t just reserved for her heroes; it’s her compassion for society’s underdogs that has most touched millions of listeners.”
The past year has seen everything from the release of Carlile’s eighth studio album, “Returning To Myself,” named by Variety and others as one of the year’s best albums, to singing “America the Beautiful” at the Super Bowl and at the Statue of Liberty for America’s 250th. She was also named one of Time Magazine’s 2026 Women of the Year and was recently inducted into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame by Bonnie Raitt.
Carlile and her band recently wrapped the North American leg of her first U.S. arena headlining tour, “The Human Tour,” in which she livestreamed the Minneapolis stop (“Be Human: A Concert for Minneapolis” – now viewable on YouTube) – raising over $750,000 for Minnesota’s The Advocates for Human Rights via her Looking Out Foundation. Next month, Brandi and her longtime bandmates, Phil and Tim Hanseroth, will embark on the sold-out “Burn the Setlist (The All-Request Tour)” across the U.S.
At the National A&E Journalism Awards Gala the press club will also honor KCRW’s Madeleine Brand with the Luminary Award for Career Achievement in Media. Other honorees will be announced in the coming days.
The NAEJ event is a fundraiser for this 501c3 charitable organization.
The club established the National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards in 2008 to recognize and honor quality journalism in the fastest-growing segment of the modern media revolution. It remains the sole acknowledgement of its kind in the nation and has become a much anticipated celebration for those covering the Arts and Entertainment Industry and its artists.
To buy tickets, sponsor the awards or learn more go to www.LApressclub.org.
