During his distinguished career spanning seven decades, musician Paul Simon has produced an unparalleled body of work including timeless masterpieces, such as Bridge Over Troubled Water, Sounds of Silence, and Graceland. Venerated as one of the greatest songwriters of all time and “popular music’s premier poet of the human condition,” Simon has received 16 Grammy Awards and has been twice inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. He is a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors, and was presented the Library of Congress’ inaugural Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, which recognizes the profound and positive effect of popular music on the world’s culture.

Simon was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2011, and in 2012 named laureate of the prestigious Polar Music Prize along with Yo-Yo Ma. In 2019, Paul Simon was the first musician to be presented the Great Americans Medal by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. His song “Mrs. Robinson,” from the film The Graduate, was named in the top ten of the AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Songs.

In 2023, Simon released his ambitious and widely acclaimed 33-minute, seven-movement masterwork, Seven Psalms, which earned him his 36th Grammy nomination and topped critics’ Album of the Year lists – lauded as “A masterpiece” by MOJO’s David Fricke, and “Profound” by The Times of London. Simon’s journey through the making of Seven Psalms is featured in director Alex Gibney’s career-spanning documentary, In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon.

It was during the recording of Seven Psalms, as revealed in the film, that Simon began to steadily lose the hearing in his left ear which initially made extended live performances impossible. Together with the Stanford Initiative to Cure Hearing Loss, and his own production team, Simon redesigned his entire stage set up to make performing viable.

Simon’s philanthropic work includes the co-founding of the Children’s Health Fund, which brings health care to low-income children and their families around the United States. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, which is committed to stopping the species extinction crisis through conservation. Over his career, Simon has raised millions of dollars for worthy causes, and in 2018 made a $1 million gift to the NYC Department of Education and Fund for Public Schools, to invest in music and art programs.