Rhode Island's Trinity Rep will honor opera singer, Beverly Sills and composer/conductor Gunther Schuller with the 1999 Annual Pell Awards for Excellence in the Arts, with a special banquet taking place April 15.

The Pell Awards, now in their third year, honor Senator Claiborne Pell and recognize artistic excellence in the New England region as well as on a national level. Pell sponsored the legislation in 1965, that originally established the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities.

Soprano Sills is a living legend in the opera community, and will add the Pell Award for Lifetime Achievement to her long list of awards and titles -- including her current stint as Chairman of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Composer Schuller has also been garlanded with awards, including the 1994 Pulitzer Prize, two Guggenheim fellowships and a 1991 MacArthur Award for Music.

Recipients of the other Pell Awards will be announced shortly. Past theatre winners include playwrights Paula Vogel and Arthur Miller and director Lloyd Richards.

-- By Sean McGrath