Latest Batch Of MacArthur Foundation Awards Revealed

The latest batch of MacArthur Foundation genius grants have been handed out to some of the top young minds in the USA, with the fund set up to ensure that these talents have the absolute best chance of succeeding on the bigger stage. One such recipient was mandolin player and composer Chris Thile; he admitted to CBS though, that he very nearly missed out on hearing the news after refusing to take a call from an unknown number.

Thile was told by his tour manager who'd ended up searching for the number online, and recalled "I think I must have turned white. I've never felt so internally warm. My heart was racing. All of a sudden, I felt very askew physically. I was trying to catch my breath. ... I thought, 'Oh my God, did I win a MacArthur?'" The grants are paid over a period of five years and total some $500,000 each - a substantial amount for any artist in the tough economic times of 2012.

Dylan C. Penningroth, as historian at Northwestern University commented of the award that he received: "This grant will make it possible for me to think big, to be more ambitious about the time period I cover and the questions I'm trying to answer, like, what's the connection to the modern civil rights era?"