Christmas with Choral Arts

Rebecca Alban Hoffberger is the founder, director and principal curator of the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM). Her extraordinary vision for the museum was promptly recognized in 1998 by The Urban Land Institute, with its coveted National Award for Excellence, making AVAM the first museum ever to be so recognized by the organization. It was quickly followed by her election to the Baltimore City Chamber of Commerce in 1999. She was inducted into the Maryland Women’s Hall of Fame and awarded the President’s Award of the Maryland YWCA in 2006. She holds Honorary Doctorates from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Stevenson University, McDaniel College, and the Pennsylvania College of Art, as well as Loyola College’s highest civic honor, the Andrew White Award. Before becoming AVAM’s founder and director, Hoffberger was a published author and development consultant for 28 years. The title of “Dame” was bestowed upon her for her work on behalf of establishing medical field hospitals in Nigeria. She has been the recipient of numerous mental health advocacy and equal opportunity awards and has served as a director of Jewish education and on the Board of the Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Center. At age 16, she became the first American to apprentice with famed mime Marcel Marceau in Paris. Of her more recent honors, they include the prestigious Visionary Award from the American Folk Art Museum in 2017, the 2019 Images and Voices of Hope Journalism Award, induction into the Baltimore Jewish Hall of Fame, and the 2019 Roger D. Redden Award from the Baltimore Architecture Foundation for her “significant role and many accomplishments in advancing Baltimore’s built environment and cultural community through the American Visionary Art Museum." In 2020, The Maryland Daily Record bestowed Rebecca with an Icon Award, and Visit Baltimore has announced that they are presenting her with the 2021 William Donald Schaefer Visionary Tourism Award.