Rinde Eckert is an interdisciplinary artist – performer, singer, writer, composer, and director. He is a recipient of the Marc Blitzstein Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an Alpert Award in theater, a Guggenheim Fellowship in composition, and a Grammy Award. His music/theater piece And God Created Great Whales won an Obie Award in 2000. His Orpheus X was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2007. In 2008 his Horizon received a Lucille Lortel Award, and a Drama Desk nomination as Outstanding Play. In 2012 was one of the first class of recipients of the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award. In 2014 he made his debut as principle soloist with the New York philharmonic in Steven Mackey’s oratorio Dreamhouse, for which he wrote the libretto. Eckert is co-founder with Mackey of the prog-rock band Big Farm.