The National Heritage Fellowship is a lifetime honor presented to master folk and traditional artists by the
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
. Similar to Japan's Living National Treasure award, the Fellowship is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. It is a one-time only award and fellows must be living citizens or permanent residents of the United States. Each year, fellowships are presented to between nine and fifteen artists or groups at a ceremony in Washington, D.C.
The Fellows are nominated by individual citizens, with an average of over 200 nominations per year. From that pool of candidates, recommendations are made by a rotating panel of specialists, including one layperson, as well as folklorists and others with a variety of forms of cultural expertise. The recommendations are then reviewed by the
National Council on the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
, with the final decisions made by the chairperson of the National Endowment for the Arts. As of 2022, 467 artists in a wide variety of fields have received Fellowships.
History
The program was officially founded in 1982 by Bess Lomax Hawes, the first director of the Folk and Traditional Arts Program at the NEA, following a five-year period of development. In 1982, the monetary award associated with the Fellowship was $5,000; in 1993, it was increased to $10,000 and since 2009, the award amount is $25,000, which is considered "enough to make a difference, but not enough to go to anyone's head". Each recipient receives a certificate of honor, the monetary award, and a congratulatory letter from the President of the United States.
The annual recognition events are held in the Fall and consist of an awards ceremony, a banquet, and a concert that is open to the public. Over the years, the awards ceremony has been held at different locations in the US capitol city, including the NEA headquarters, Ford's Theatre,
George Washington University
, mottoeng = "God is Our Trust"
, established =
, type = Private federally chartered research university
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, endowment = $2.8 billion (2022)
, presi ...
, the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...
, and for the first time at the
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...
in 1995. Since 2000, the banquet has been held in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress. The concert features musical performances, craft demonstrations, and interviews with the honorees.Masters of ceremonies at the concerts have included folksinger
Pete Seeger
Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, Seeger also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, notabl ...
, actress
Ruby Dee
Ruby Dee (October 27, 1922 – June 11, 2014) was an American actress, poet, playwright, screenwriter, journalist, and civil rights activist. She originated the role of "Ruth Younger" in the stage and film versions of '' A Raisin in the Sun'' (1 ...
, author
Studs Terkel
Louis "Studs" Terkel (May 16, 1912 – October 31, 2008) was an American writer, historian, actor, and broadcaster. He received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985 for '' The Good War'' and is best remembered for his oral h ...
Nick Spitzer
Nick may refer to:
* Nick (given name)
* A cricket term for a slight deviation of the ball off the edge of the bat
* British slang for being arrested
* British slang for a police station
* British slang for stealing
* Short for nickname
Places ...
, the host of public radio program '' American Routes''. Beginning in 2010, the Fellowship concerts have been streamed live on the NEA website and archived on YouTube.
In 2000, the NEA instituted the Bess Lomax Hawes Award in conjunction with the Fellowships, "given to an individual for achievements in fostering excellence, ensuring vitality, and promoting public appreciation of the folk and traditional arts". The Hawes Award has been given annually since 2000 to recognize "artists whose contributions, primarily through teaching, advocacy, and organizing and preserving important repertoires, have greatly benefited their artistic tradition. It also recognizes individuals, such as producers and activists, who have comprehensively increased opportunities for and public visibility of traditional artists."
Publications
* A companion volume titled ''American Folk Masters: The National Heritage Fellows'' was published in 1992 to accompany a traveling exhibition (1991–1994) called "America's Living Folk Traditions" that featured the artistry of 36 Fellowship recipients.
* A two-volume biographical dictionary of the award winners from the first 20 years was published in 2001, titled ''Masters of Traditional Arts''.
*A young readers book featuring five of the National Heritage Fellows entitled ''Extraordinary Ordinary People: Five American Masters of Traditional Arts'' was published in 2006.
Winners
Awardees have included Native American basket weavers, African American
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the ...
musicians, traditional
fiddle
A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, the ...
rs,
Mexican American
Mexican Americans ( es, mexicano-estadounidenses, , or ) are Americans of full or partial Mexican heritage. In 2019, Mexican Americans comprised 11.3% of the US population and 61.5% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexica ...
accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a ree ...
ists, and all manner of traditional artisans and performers of numerous ethnic backgrounds.
__NOTOC__
National Heritage Fellowship winners are:
Joe Heaney
Joe Heaney (AKA Joe Éinniú; Irish: Seosamh Ó hÉanaí) (1 October 1919 – 1 May 1984) was an Irish traditional ( sean nós) singer from County Galway, Ireland. He spent most of his adult life abroad, living in England, Scotland and New York ...
George López
George T. López (April 23, 1900 – December 23, 1993) was a renowned Santos woodcarver who was awarded the National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts in 1982. He was born in the small village of Cordova, New Mexico whi ...
shape note
Shape notes are a musical notation designed to facilitate congregational and social singing. The notation, introduced in late 18th century England, became a popular teaching device in American singing schools. Shapes were added to the noteh ...
Mexican American
Mexican Americans ( es, mexicano-estadounidenses, , or ) are Americans of full or partial Mexican heritage. In 2019, Mexican Americans comprised 11.3% of the US population and 61.5% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexica ...
singer
*
Bill Monroe
William Smith "Bill" Monroe (; September 13, 1911 – September 9, 1996) was an American mandolinist, singer, and songwriter, who created the bluegrass music genre. Because of this, he is often called the " Father of Bluegrass".
The genre take ...
blacksmith
A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such as gates, gr ...
Appalachia
Appalachia () is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York State to northern Alabama and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Newfoundland and Labrador, C ...
n storyteller
* Stanley Hicks, Appalachian musician and storyteller
*
John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1912 or 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues. Hooker often in ...
Narciso Martínez
Narciso Martínez (October 29, 1911 in Reynosa, Mexico – June 5, 1992 in San Benito, Texas), whose nickname was ''El Huracan del Valle'' ("The Hurricane of the Valley"), - Registration required. was a Mexican folk musician. He began recording i ...
Almeda Riddle
Almeda Riddle (November 21, 1898 – June 30, 1986) was an American folk singer. Born and raised in Cleburne County, Arkansas, she learned music from her father, a fiddler and a teacher of shape note singing. She collected and sang traditio ...
Lem Ward
Lem may refer to:
Places
* 3836 Lem, an asteroid named after Stanisław Lem
* , a municipality in Jutland
People Given name or nickname
(Alphabetical by surname)
* Lemuel Lem Barney (born 1945), American football player
* Lem Billings (1916–1 ...
shape note
Shape notes are a musical notation designed to facilitate congregational and social singing. The notation, introduced in late 18th century England, became a popular teaching device in American singing schools. Shapes were added to the noteh ...
Elizabeth Cotten
Elizabeth "Libba" Cotten ( Nevills; January 5, 1893 – June 29, 1987) was an American folk and blues musician. She was a self-taught left-handed guitarist who played a guitar strung for a right-handed player, but played it upside down. This pos ...
hammered dulcimer
The hammered dulcimer (also called the hammer dulcimer) is a percussion- stringed instrument which consists of strings typically stretched over a trapezoidal resonant sound board. The hammered dulcimer is set before the musician, who in more tr ...
maker and player
*
Janie Hunter
Janie Hunter (June 7, 1918 – June 14, 1997) was an American singer and storyteller who worked to preserve Gullah culture and folkways in her home of Johns Island, South Carolina. She received a 1984 National Endowment for the Arts National Heri ...
, singer and storyteller
*
Mary Jane Manigault
Mary Jane Manigault (June 13, 1913 – November 8, 2010) was a sweetgrass basket maker from Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. She began sweetgrass basket-weaving at a young age, and the tradition has been continued by her children and grandchildre ...
,
seagrass
Seagrasses are the only flowering plants which grow in marine environments. There are about 60 species of fully marine seagrasses which belong to four families ( Posidoniaceae, Zosteraceae, Hydrocharitaceae and Cymodoceaceae), all in the ...
Martin Mulvihill
Martin Mulvihill (born in Ballygoughlin, County Limerick, Ireland in 1923; died 21 July 1987) was an Irish traditional musician, composer, teacher, and author. He composed roughly 25 tunes in the Irish traditional style.
Although his mother Br ...
tap dance
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm (jazz) tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses on dance; it is widely perf ...
r
* Ralph Stanley, Appalachian banjo player and singer
*
Margaret Tafoya
Maria Margarita "Margaret" Tafoya ( Tewa name: Corn Blossom; August 13, 1904 – February 25, 2001) was the matriarch of Santa Clara Pueblo potters. She was a recipient of a 1984 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for ...
, potter
*
Dave Tarras
Dave Tarras (c. 1895 – February 13, 1989) was a Ukrainian-born American klezmer clarinetist and bandleader, a celebrated klezmer musician, instrumental in Klezmer revival.
Biography Early life
Tarras was born David Tarasiuk in Teplyk, Ukrain ...
,
klezmer
Klezmer ( yi, קלעזמער or ) is an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. The essential elements of the tradition include dance tunes, ritual melodies, and virtuosic improvisations played for l ...
Eskimo
Eskimo () is an exonym used to refer to two closely related Indigenous peoples: the Inuit (including the Alaska Native Iñupiat, the Greenlandic Inuit, and the Canadian Inuit) and the Yupik (or Yuit) of eastern Siberia and Alaska. A related ...
Eppie Archuleta
Epifania "Eppie" Archuleta (January 6, 1922 – April 11, 2014) was an American weaver and textile artisan at the annual Spanish Market in Santa Fe, New Mexico. While the more traditional Chimayo and Rio Grande tapestries used diamonds and stripes ...
spoons
Spoons may refer to:
* Spoon, a utensil commonly used with soup
* Spoons (card game), the card game of Donkey, but using spoons
Film and TV
* ''Spoons'' (TV series), a 2005 UK comedy sketch show
*Spoons, a minor character from ''The Sopranos''
...
Jennie Thlunaut
Jennie Thlunaut (–1986) was a Tlingit artist, who is credited with keeping the art of Chilkat weaving alive and was one of the most celebrated Northwest Coastal master weavers of the 20th century.Brown, Steven C. ''Native Visions: Evolution in ...
Nimrod Workman
Nimrod Workman (November 5, 1895 – November 26, 1994) was an American folk singer, coal miner and trade unionist. His musical repertoire included traditional English and Scottish ballads passed down through his family, Appalachian folk songs ...
Louis Bashell
Louis Bashell (July 1, 1914 – December 17, 2008) was an American polka musician from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was known for playing the Slovenian-style polka. He was nicknamed "Milwaukee's polka king".
Bashell's band was signed to RCA Victo ...
,
polka
Polka is a dance and genre of dance music originating in nineteenth-century Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. Though associated with Czech culture, polka is popular throughout Europe and the Americas.
History
Etymology
The te ...
Wade Mainer
Wade Eckhart Mainer (April 21, 1907 – September 12, 2011) was an American country singer and banjoist. With his band, the Sons of the Mountaineers, he is credited with bridging the gap between old-time mountain music and Bluegrass and is some ...
banjo
The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the ...
bobbin lace
Bobbin lace is a lace textile made by braiding and twisting lengths of thread, which are wound on bobbins to manage them. As the work progresses, the weaving is held in place with pins set in a lace pillow, the placement of the pins usually de ...
maker
*
John Dee Holeman
John Dee Holeman (April 4, 1929April 30, 2021) was an American Piedmont blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. His music includes elements of Texas blues, R&B and African-American string-band music. In his younger days he was also known for h ...
, dancer, musician, and singer
* Albert " Sunnyland Slim" Luandrew, blues pianist and singer
* Yang Fang Nhu, weaver and embroiderer
* Kenny Sidle, fiddler
*
Willie Mae Ford Smith
Willie Mae Ford Smith (June 23, 1904 – February 2, 1994) was an American musician and Christian evangelist instrumental in the development and spread of gospel music in the United States. She grew up singing with her family, joining a quartet ...
ukulele
The ukulele ( ; from haw, ukulele , approximately ), also called Uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments of Portuguese origin and popularized in Hawaii. It generally employs four nylon strings.
The tone and volume of the instrumen ...
John Cephas
Cephas & Wiggins were an American acoustic blues duo, composed of the guitarist John Cephas (September 4, 1930 – March 4, 2009) and the harmonica player Phil Wiggins (born May 8, 1954). They were known for playing Piedmont blues.
Histo ...
,
Piedmont blues
Piedmont blues (also known as East Coast, or Southeastern blues) refers primarily to a guitar style, which is characterized by a fingerpicking approach in which a regular, alternating thumb bass string rhythmic pattern supports a syncopated melod ...
guitarist and singer
*
The Fairfield Four
The Fairfield Four is an American gospel group that has existed for over 100 years, starting as a trio in the Fairfield Baptist Church, Nashville, Tennessee, in 1921. They were designated as National Heritage Fellows in 1989 by the National En ...
lyra
Lyra (; Latin for lyre, from Greek ''λύρα'') is a small constellation. It is one of the 48 listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and is one of the modern 88 constellations recognized by the International Astronomical Union. Lyra ...
Kiowa
Kiowa () people are a Native American tribe and an indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in the 17th and 18th centuries,Pritzker 326 and e ...
tap dance
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm (jazz) tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses on dance; it is widely perf ...
r and choreographer
*
Earl Scruggs
Earl Eugene Scruggs (January 6, 1924 – March 28, 2012) was an American musician noted for popularizing a three-finger banjo picking style, now called "Scruggs style", which is a defining characteristic of bluegrass music. His three-finge ...
Mariachi
Mariachi (, , ) is a genre of regional Mexican music that dates back to at least the 18th century, evolving over time in the countryside of various regions of western Mexico. The usual mariachi group today consists of as many as eight violins, t ...
Ojibwe
The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains.
According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...
storyteller and craftswoman
* Kevin Locke, Lakota flute player, singer, and dancer
*
Marie McDonald
Marie McDonald (born Cora Marie Frye, July 6, 1923 – October 21, 1965) was an American singer and actress known as "The Body Beautiful" and later nicknamed "The Body".
Early life
Born in Burgin, Kentucky, McDonald was the daughter of Evertt ...
Wally McRae
Wallace D. "Wally" McRae (born February 26, 1936) is an American rancher, cowboy, cowboy poet and philosopher. He runs the Rocker Six Cattle Co. ranch on Rosebud Creek, south of Rosebud, Montana.
Biography
McRae is a third-generation ranc ...
Hupa
Hupa ( Yurok language term: Huep'oola' / Huep'oolaa = "Hupa people") are a Native American people of the Athabaskan-speaking ethnolinguistic group in northwestern California. Their endonym is Natinixwe, also spelled Natinook-wa, meaning "Peopl ...
Jerry Brown
Edmund Gerald Brown Jr. (born April 7, 1938) is an American lawyer, author, and politician who served as the 34th and 39th governor of California from 1975 to 1983 and 2011 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected Secretary of S ...
, stoneware potter
*
Walker Calhoun
Walker Calhoun (May 13, 1918 – March 28, 2012) was an Eastern Band Cherokee musician, dancer, and teacher. He was a medicine man and spiritual leader who worked to preserve the history, religion, and herbal healing methods of his people. With ...
,
Cherokee
The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, th ...
musician, dancer and teacher
*
Clyde Davenport
Clyde Thomas Davenport (October 21, 1921 – February 16, 2020) was an American old-time fiddler and banjo player from Monticello, Kentucky.
Davenport was a recipient of a 1992 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for ...
Potawatomi
The Potawatomi , also spelled Pottawatomi and Pottawatomie (among many variations), are a Native American people of the western Great Lakes region, upper Mississippi River and Great Plains. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, a m ...
Fatima Kuinova
Panir Ibragimova (28 December 1926 – 28 December 2021), better known by the stage name of Fatima Kuinova ( tg, Фатима Куэнова, fa, فاطمه کوینوا), was a Bukharan Jewish Shashmakom singer. She was named "Merited Artist ...
,
Bukharan Jew
Bukharan Jews ( Bukharian: יהודיאני בוכארא/яҳудиёни Бухоро, ''Yahudiyoni Bukhoro''; he, יהודי בוכרה, ''Yehudey Bukhara''), in modern times also called Bukharian Jews ( Bukharian: יהודיאני בוכאר ...
ish singer
*
John Naka
John Yoshio Naka (August 16, 1914, Fort Lupton, Colorado – May 19, 2004, Whittier, California) was an American horticulturist, teacher, author, and master bonsai cultivator.
Life
He was born a Nisei Japanese-American, but at age 8 moved back ...
,
bonsai
Bonsai ( ja, 盆栽, , tray planting, ) is the Japanese art of growing and training miniature trees in pots, developed from the traditional Chinese art form of '' penjing''. Unlike ''penjing'', which utilizes traditional techniques to produc ...
sculptor
*
Marc Savoy
Marc Savoy ( ) (born October 1, 1940) is an American musician, and builder and player of the Cajun accordion.
Early life
He was born on his grandfather's rice farm near Eunice, Louisiana. His grandfather was a fiddler, who occasionally played ...
Santiago Almeida
Santiago Almeida (July 25, 1911 – July 8, 1999) was a Texas musician influential in the development of the musical genres of ''tejano music, tejano'' and ''conjunto''.
Biography
Almeida was born in Skidmore, Texas and grew up on a farm. I ...
spur
A spur is a metal tool designed to be worn in pairs on the heels of riding boots for the purpose of directing a horse or other animal to move forward or laterally while riding. It is usually used to refine the riding aids (commands) and to ba ...
pipa
The pipa, pípá, or p'i-p'a () is a traditional Chinese musical instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments. Sometimes called the "Chinese lute", the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets ran ...
Liz Carroll
Liz Carroll (born September 19, 1956) is an American fiddler and composer. She is a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts' National Heritage Fellowship Award. Carroll and collaborator Irish guitarist John Doyle were nominated for a G ...
Passamaquoddy
The Passamaquoddy ( Maliseet-Passamaquoddy: ''Peskotomuhkati'') are a Native American/First Nations people who live in northeastern North America. Their traditional homeland, Peskotomuhkatik'','' straddles the Canadian province of New Brunswick ...
Western swing
Western swing music is a subgenre of American country music that originated in the late 1920s in the West and South among the region's Western string bands. It is dance music, often with an up-tempo beat, which attracted huge crowds to dance ...
D. L. Menard
Doris Leon Menard#François90, François 1990, p. 446. (April 14, 1932 – July 27, 2017) was an American songwriter, performer, and recording artist in contemporary Cajun music. He was called the "Cajun Hank Williams".
Biography
Menard was bor ...
Lily Vorperian
''Lilium'' () is a genus of herbaceous flowering plants growing from bulbs, all with large prominent flowers. They are the true lilies. Lilies are a group of flowering plants which are important in culture and literature in much of the world. ...
, Marash-style embroiderer
* Elder Roma Wilson, gospel blues harmonica player
Navajo
The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people of the Southwestern United States.
With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest fe ...
luthier
A luthier ( ; AmE also ) is a craftsperson who builds or repairs string instruments that have a neck and a sound box. The word "luthier" is originally French and comes from the French word for lute. The term was originally used for makers of ...
jing erhu The ''jing erhu'' () is a Chinese two-stringed bowed musical instrument in the ''huqin'' family of instruments, similar to the ''erhu''. It is so named because it is used in ''jing xi'', or Beijing opera. It is lower in pitch than the '' jinghu'', w ...
Shoshone
The Shoshone or Shoshoni ( or ) are a Native American tribe with four large cultural/linguistic divisions:
* Eastern Shoshone: Wyoming
* Northern Shoshone: southern Idaho
* Western Shoshone: Nevada, northern Utah
* Goshute: western Utah, easte ...
John Mealing
John Mealing (born 5 April 1942 in Yeovil, Somerset) is a British keyboardist, composer and arranger.
After leaving the Don Rendell-Ian Carr Quintet in the late sixties,Cornelius Wright, Jr., railroad worksong singers
* Vernon Owens, stoneware potter
* Dolly Spencer, Inupiat dollmaker
1997
*
Edward Babb
Edward Charles Babb (February 1, 1834 – March 9, 1899) was an American Civil War veteran and businessman who served as the 15th List of mayors of Minneapolis, mayor of Minneapolis.
Life and career
Babb was born in Westbrook, Maine. After a ...
spinner Technology
*Spinner (aeronautics), the aerodynamic cone at the hub of an aircraft propeller
* Spinner (cell culture), laboratory equipment for cultivating plant or mammalian cells
* Spinner (computing), a graphical widget in a GUI
* Spinner (MIT Med ...
sarod
The sarod is a stringed instrument, used in Hindustani music on the Indian subcontinent. Along with the sitar, it is among the most popular and prominent instruments. It is known for a deep, weighty, introspective sound, in contrast with the swe ...
Phong Nguyen
Gilt is an online shopping and lifestyle website based in the United States, launched in 2007. On January 7, 2016, The company was sold to Hudson's Bay Company for approximately $250 million. Prior to the Hudson’s Bay acquisition, sales were ex ...
(Nguyễn Thuyết Phong), musician and ethnomusicologist
* Hystercine Rankin, quilter
* Francis Whitaker, blacksmith and ornamental ironworker
Klezmer
Klezmer ( yi, קלעזמער or ) is an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. The essential elements of the tradition include dance tunes, ritual melodies, and virtuosic improvisations played for l ...
musicians
*
Sophia George
Sophia George (born 21 February 1964, in Kingston, Jamaica) is a Jamaican singer. She is best known for her 1985 hit "Girlie Girlie", which reached number one in Jamaica, topping the RJR chart for 11 weeks, and was also a Top-10 hit in the U ...
,
Yakama
The Yakama are a Native American tribe with nearly 10,851 members, based primarily in eastern Washington state.
Yakama people today are enrolled in the federally recognized tribe, the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. Their Ya ...
Byzantine chant
Byzantine music (Greek: Βυζαντινή μουσική) is the music of the Byzantine Empire. Originally it consisted of songs and hymns composed to Greek texts used for courtly ceremonials, during festivals, or as paraliturgical and liturgical ...
Ho-Chunk
The Ho-Chunk, also known as Hoocągra or Winnebago (referred to as ''Hotúŋe'' in the neighboring indigenous Iowa-Otoe language), are a Siouan-speaking Native American people whose historic territory includes parts of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iow ...
Black Ash Black ash is a common name for several plants and may refer to:
* ''Acer negundo'', native to North America
* ''Fraxinus nigra'', native to North America
* ''Eucalyptus sieberi
''Eucalyptus sieberi'', commonly known as the silvertop ash or bla ...
basketmaker and needleworker
*
Shirley Caesar
Shirley Ann Caesar-Williams (born October 13, 1938), known professionally as Shirley Caesar, is an American gospel singer whose career has spanned seven decades. She has won 11 Grammys in addition to Dove Awards and Stellar Awards; Caesar is k ...
Hidatsa
The Hidatsa are a Siouan people. They are enrolled in the federally recognized Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. Their language is related to that of the Crow, and they are sometimes considered a paren ...
Zakir Hussain Zakir Hussain ( ur, , link=no) is the name of:
* Zakir Husain (politician), an Indian politician and former president of India
* Zakir Hussain (actor), Bollywood actor
* Zakir Hussain (field hockey) (1934–2019), Pakistani field hockey player
* ...
Lindy Hop
The Lindy Hop is an American dance which was born in the Black communities of Harlem, New York City, in 1928 and has evolved since then. It was very popular during the swing era of the late 1930s and early 1940s. Lindy is a fusion of many danc ...
Dorothy Thompson
Dorothy Celene Thompson (July 9, 1893 – January 30, 1961) was an American journalist and radio broadcaster. She was the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany in 1934 and was one of the few women news commentators on radio ...
Don Walser
Donald Ray Walser (September 14, 1934 – September 20, 2006) was an American country music singer. He was known as a unique, award-winning yodeling "Texas country music legend."
Music career
Walser was born in Brownfield, Texas and raised ...
Apache
The Apache () are a group of culturally related Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, which include the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Mimbreño, Ndendahe (Bedonkohe or Mogollon and Nednhi or Carrizaleño a ...
Beijing Opera
Peking opera, or Beijing opera (), is the most dominant form of Chinese opera, which combines music, vocal performance, mime, dance and acrobatics. It arose in Beijing in the mid-Qing dynasty (1644–1912) and became fully developed and recognize ...
performer
*
Seiichi Tanaka
is the first Japan-trained teacher of kumidaiko, or taiko, in the United States and is largely regarded as the father of the art form in North America.
Early life
Tanaka was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1943 and immigrated to the United States in 19 ...
,
Taiko
are a broad range of Japanese percussion instruments. In Japanese, the term refers to any kind of drum, but outside Japan, it is used specifically to refer to any of the various Japanese drums called and to the form of ensemble drumming ...
Kiowa
Kiowa () people are a Native American tribe and an indigenous people of the Great Plains of the United States. They migrated southward from western Montana into the Rocky Mountains in Colorado in the 17th and 18th centuries,Pritzker 326 and e ...
Ojibwe
The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains.
According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...
Flory Jagoda
Flory Jagoda (born Flora Papo; December 21, 1923January 29, 2021) was a Bosnian Jewishborn American guitarist, composer and singer-songwriter. She was known for her composition and interpretation of Sephardic songs, Judeo-Espanyol (Ladino) song ...
Passamaquoddy
The Passamaquoddy ( Maliseet-Passamaquoddy: ''Peskotomuhkati'') are a Native American/First Nations people who live in northeastern North America. Their traditional homeland, Peskotomuhkatik'','' straddles the Canadian province of New Brunswick ...
contra dance
Contra dance (also contradance, contra-dance and other variant spellings) is a form of folk dancing made up of long lines of couples.
It has mixed origins from English country dance, Scottish country dance, and French dance styles in the 17th ...
Losang Samten
Losang Samten () is a Tibetan-American scholar, sand mandala artist, former Buddhist monk, and Spiritual Director of the Chenrezig Tibetan Buddhist Center of Philadelphia. He is one of only an estimated 30 people worldwide who are qualified to ...
,
Tibetan
Tibetan may mean:
* of, from, or related to Tibet
* Tibetan people, an ethnic group
* Tibetan language:
** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard
** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken diale ...
Rosa Elena Egipciaco
Rosa Elena Egipciaco, often referred to as the 'Queen of Mundillo', is a master Mundillo lacemaker and teacher of the Puerto Rican folk art. In addition to being part of the long Mundillo tradition of her hometown of Moca, Puerto Rico, she belongs ...
,
mundillo
Mundillo is a craft of handmade bobbin lace that is cultivated and honored on the island of Puerto Rico and Panama. The term 'mundillo' means 'little world', referring to the cylindrical pillow on which the lace maker ('Mundillista') weaves int ...
(Puerto Rican
bobbin lace
Bobbin lace is a lace textile made by braiding and twisting lengths of thread, which are wound on bobbins to manage them. As the work progresses, the weaving is held in place with pins set in a lace pillow, the placement of the pins usually de ...
Roberto Martinez
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, ho ...
Manoochehr Sadeghi
Manoochehr Sadeghi (born April 13, 1938) is a Persian-American naturalized citizen, born in Tehran, Iran. He is considered a Grandmaster or Ostad of the santur, a Persian hammered dulcimer. He has been lecturing, teaching, recording and ...
,
santur
The santur (also ''santūr'', ''santour'', ''santoor'') ( fa, سنتور), is a hammered dulcimer of Iranian origins.--- Rashid, Subhi Anwar (1989). ''Al-ʼĀlāt al-musīqīyya al-muṣāhiba lil-Maqām al-ʻIrāqī''. Baghdad: Matbaʻat al-ʻU ...
Dobro
Dobro is an American brand of resonator guitars, currently owned by Gibson (guitar company), Gibson and manufactured by its subsidiary Epiphone. The term "dobro" is also used as a generic term for any wood-bodied, single-cone resonator guitar.
...
Tamburitza
Tamburica ( or ) or tamboura ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", tamburica, тамбурица, little tamboura; hu, tambura; el, Ταμπουράς, Tampourás; sometimes written tamburrizza or tamburitza), refers to a family of long-necked lute ...
Michael Doucet
Michael Louis Doucet (born February 14, 1951) is an American singer-songwriter and musician best known as the founder of the Cajun band BeauSoleil.
Early life
Doucet was born in Scott, Louisiana, to a Cajun family. Family parties in the 1950 ...
Tamburitza
Tamburica ( or ) or tamboura ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", tamburica, тамбурица, little tamboura; hu, tambura; el, Ταμπουράς, Tampourás; sometimes written tamburrizza or tamburitza), refers to a family of long-necked lute ...
musician, prim player
* Wanda Jackson, country, rockabilly and gospel singer
*
Grace Henderson Nez
Grace Henderson Nez (May 10, 1913 – July 14, 2006) was a Navajo weaver, known for her traditional designs. Her main styles were old designs from the 19th century and Ganado style. Some of her work was demonstrated at the Hubbell Trading Post, ...
,
Navajo
The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people of the Southwestern United States.
With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest fe ...
weaver
*
Herminia Albarrán Romero
Herminia Albarrán Romero is a Mexican-American artist known for her papel picado (Mexican paper cutting) and altar-making. She received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2005, which is the United States' ...
Haida
Haida may refer to:
Places
* Haida, an old name for Nový Bor
* Haida Gwaii, meaning "Islands of the People", formerly called the Queen Charlotte Islands
* Haida Islands, a different archipelago near Bella Bella, British Columbia
Ships
* , a ...
cedar bark weaver
* Henry Gray, blues piano player and singer
* Doyle Lawson, gospel and bluegrass singer, bandleader
* Esther Martinez, Tewa linguist and storyteller
*
Diomedes Matos
Diomedes Matos is a Puerto Rican musician and master instrument maker who is most famous for building string instruments. He built his first guitar at age 12 and later studied and mastered construction techniques for several traditional string ...
Mavis Staples
Mavis Staples (born July 10, 1939) is an American rhythm and blues and gospel singer, actress, and civil rights activist. She rose to fame as a member of her family's band The Staple Singers (she is the last surviving member of that band). Duri ...
, gospel, rhythm and blues singer
* Nancy Sweezy, folklorist and potter
* Treme Brass Band, New Orleans brass band
Pat Courtney Gold
Pat Courtney Gold (January 22, 1939 – July 11, 2022) was a Wasco Native fiber artist and basket weaver from the Columbia River area of Oregon. She graduated with a BA in mathematics and physics from Whitman College and worked as a mathemati ...
, Wasco sally bag weaver
*
Eddie Kamae
Edward Leilani "Eddie" Kamae (August 4, 1927 – January 7, 2017) was one of the founding members of Sons of Hawaii. He was a 'ukulele virtuoso, singer, composer, film producer and primary proponent of the Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance.
Biog ...
, Hawaiian musician
* Agustin Lira, Chicano singer and musician,
* Julia Parker, Kashia Pomo basketmaker
*
Mary Jane Queen
Mary Jane Prince Queen (February 20, 1914 – June 29, 2007) was an American ballad singer and banjo player. She was once called a "walking archive of mountain music" for her knowledge of the traditional music of Appalachia.
Queen was born in Ja ...
harmony
In music, harmony is the process by which individual sounds are joined together or composed into whole units or compositions. Often, the term harmony refers to simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches ( tones, notes), or chords. Howeve ...
a cappella
''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...
gospel
Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...
willow
Willows, also called sallows and osiers, from the genus ''Salix'', comprise around 400 speciesMabberley, D.J. 1997. The Plant Book, Cambridge University Press #2: Cambridge. of typically deciduous trees and shrubs, found primarily on moist so ...
basketmaker
Basket weaving (also basketry or basket making) is the process of weaving or sewing pliable materials into three-dimensional artifacts, such as baskets, mats, mesh bags or even furniture. Craftspeople and artists specialized in making baskets ...
from
South Dakota
South Dakota (; Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux Native American tribes, who comprise a large po ...
barn
A barn is an agricultural building usually on farms and used for various purposes. In North America, a barn refers to structures that house livestock, including cattle and horses, as well as equipment and fodder, and often grain.Alle ...
Yoruba
The Yoruba people (, , ) are a West African ethnic group that mainly inhabit parts of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. The areas of these countries primarily inhabited by Yoruba are often collectively referred to as Yorubaland. The Yoruba constitute ...
Orisha
Orishas (singular: orisha) are spirits that play a key role in the Yoruba religion of West Africa and several religions of the African diaspora that derive from it, such as Cuban, Dominican and Puerto Rican Santería and Brazilian Candomblé. ...
singer
*
Joel Nelson
Joel Nelson is a cowboy poet.
He is a recipient of a 2009 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government ...
Sophiline Cheam Shapiro
Sophiline Cheam Shapiro ( km, ឝភីរោ ជាម សុភិលីន; born 1967) is a Cambodian dancer, choreographer, and educator.
Early life
At the age of eight, Shapiro was forced to live in the countryside of Cambodia after her fam ...
, Cambodian classical dancer and choreographer
2010
* Yacub Addy, Ghanaian drum master, preserves music of the
Ga people
The Ga-Dangbe, Gã-Daŋbɛ, Ga-Dangme, or GaDangme are an ethnic group in Ghana, Togo and Benin. The Ga and Dangbe people are grouped respectively as part of the Ga–Dangme ethnolinguistic group. The Ga-Dangmes are one ethnic group that lives ...
Lauhala ''Lauhala'', ''lau'' meaning "leaf" in the Hawaiian language, refers to the leaves of the hala tree ''( Pandanus tectorius)''.
Uses
The hala tree is of great cultural, health and economic importance in many Pacific Islands. The fruit of the tree ...
Judith McCulloh
Judith McCulloh (August 16, 1935 – July 13, 2014) was an American folklorist, ethnomusicologist, and university press editor.
Early life and education
McCulloh was born in Spring Valley, Illinois, on August 16, 1935 to Henry and Edna Binkel ...
Bharatanatyam
Bharatanatyam () is a major form of Indian classical dance that originated in Tamil Nadu. It is one of the eight widely recognized Indian classical dance forms, and expresses South Indian religious themes and spiritual ideas, particularly of ...
Carlinhos Pandeiro de Ouro
Carlinhos Pandeiro de Ouro Carlos de Oliveira, better known as Carlinhos Pandeiro de Ouro, is a Brazilian percussionist best known for playing the pandeiro, a tunable tambourine, played with a different technique than in North American music, and ...
PJ Hirabayashi
Patti Jo "PJ" Hirabayashi is one of the pioneers of the North American Taiko movement. She is the founder of TaikoPeace, President of Kodo Arts Sphere America (KASA), and co-founder of Creatives for Compassionate Communities-a grassroots art-iv ...
,
Taiko drum
are a broad range of Japanese percussion instruments. In Japanese, the term refers to any kind of drum, but outside Japan, it is used specifically to refer to any of the various Japanese drums called and to the form of ensemble drumming ...
leaders
*
Ledward Kaapana
Ledward Kaapana (born August 25, 1948) is a Hawaiian musician, best known for playing in the slack key guitar style. He also plays steel guitar, ukulele, autoharp and bass guitar, and is a baritone and falsetto vocalist.
Early life
Born on Augu ...
,
Ukulele
The ukulele ( ; from haw, ukulele , approximately ), also called Uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments of Portuguese origin and popularized in Hawaii. It generally employs four nylon strings.
The tone and volume of the instrumen ...
Old Regular Baptist
The Old Regular Baptist denomination is one of the oldest in Appalachia with roots in both the Regular and Separate Baptists of the American Colonies and the Particular Baptist of Great Britain. This group has seen a marked decline in its member ...
Piedmont blues
Piedmont blues (also known as East Coast, or Southeastern blues) refers primarily to a guitar style, which is characterized by a fingerpicking approach in which a regular, alternating thumb bass string rhythmic pattern supports a syncopated melod ...
songster
*
Yuri Yunakov
Yuri Yunakov is a Turkish- Bulgarian Roma musician, who is famous for participating in the development of Bulgarian wedding music, and introducing it to the United States. He grew up in a Muslim family in Thrace, and started playing music as a ...
dobro
Dobro is an American brand of resonator guitars, currently owned by Gibson (guitar company), Gibson and manufactured by its subsidiary Epiphone. The term "dobro" is also used as a generic term for any wood-bodied, single-cone resonator guitar.
...
dog sled
A dog sled or dog sleigh is a sled pulled by one or more sled dogs used to travel over ice and through snow. Numerous types of sleds are used, depending on their function. They can be used for dog sled racing. Traditionally in Greenland and th ...
shipwright
Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to befo ...
Passamaquoddy
The Passamaquoddy ( Maliseet-Passamaquoddy: ''Peskotomuhkati'') are a Native American/First Nations people who live in northeastern North America. Their traditional homeland, Peskotomuhkatik'','' straddles the Canadian province of New Brunswick ...
Andy Statman
Andy Statman (born 1950) is a noted American klezmer clarinetist and bluegrass/ newgrass mandolinist.
Life and career
Statman was born in New York City and grew up in the borough of Queens. Beginning at age 12, he learned to play banjo and g ...
,
klezmer
Klezmer ( yi, קלעזמער or ) is an instrumental musical tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. The essential elements of the tradition include dance tunes, ritual melodies, and virtuosic improvisations played for l ...
clarinetist, mandolinist, and composer
2013
*
Sheila Kay Adams
Sheila Kay Adams is an American storyteller, author, and musician from the Sodom Laurel community in Madison County, North Carolina.
Background
A seventh-generation ballad singer, storyteller, and claw-hammer banjo player, Sheila Kay Adams w ...
, Storyteller and musician
*
Ralph Burns
Ralph Joseph P. Burns (June 29, 1922 – November 21, 2001) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger.
Early life
Burns was born in Newton, Massachusetts, United States, where he began playing the piano as a child. In 1938, he atten ...
Cimbalom
The cimbalom (; ) or concert cimbalom is a type of chordophone composed of a large, trapezoidal box on legs with metal strings stretched across its top and a damping pedal underneath. It was designed and created by V. Josef Schunda in 1874 in ...
Rahim AlHaj
Rahim AlHaj ( ar, رحيم الحاج, born c. 1968) is an Iraqi American oud musician and composer.
Early life
AlHaj was born in Baghdad, Iraq and began playing the oud (an Arabic lute) at age nine. Early on, it was evident that he had a remark ...
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...
Loretta Pettway
Loretta Pettway (born 1942) is an American artist and quilt maker of the Gee's Bend Collective from Boykin, Alabama. Her quilts are known for their bold and improvisational style.
In 2006 her quilts "Roman Stripes" variation and Medallion ap ...
Drink Small
Drink Small (born January 28, 1933) is an American soul blues and electric blues guitarist, pianist, singer, and songwriter. He is known as The Blues Doctor and has been influenced by a variety of musical styles including gospel and country mus ...
* Bryan Akipa, Dakota flute maker and player
* Monk Boudreaux, Mardi Gras Indian craftsman and musician
*
Billy McComiskey
Billy may refer to:
* Billy (name), a name (and list of people with the name)
Animals
* Billy (dog), a dog breed
* Billy (pigeon), awarded the Dickin Medal in 1945
* Billy (pygmy hippo), a pet of U.S. President Calvin Coolidge
* Billy, a young ...
, Irish button accordionist
* Artemio Posadas, Master Huastecan son musician and advocate
*
Clarissa Rizal
Clarissa Rizal (June 4, 1956 – December 7, 2016) was a Tlingit artist of Filipino descent. She was best known as a Chilkat and Ravenstail weaver, but she also worked in painting, printmaking, carving, and sculpting.
Personal life
Riza ...
, Tlingit ceremonial regalia maker
*
Theresa Secord
Theresa Secord (born 1958) is an artist, basketmaker, geologist and activist from Maine. She is a member of the Penobscot nation, and the great-granddaughter of the well-known weaver Philomene Saulis Nelson. She co-founded, and was the director ...
Ella Jenkins
Ella Jenkins (born August 6, 1924) is an American folk singer and actress. Dubbed "The First Lady of the Children's Folk Song" by the ''Wisconsin State Journal'', she has been a leading performer of children's music for over fifty years. Her alb ...
, children's folk singer and musician
* Dwight Lamb, Danish
button accordion
A button accordion is a type of accordion on which the melody-side keyboard consists of a series of buttons. This differs from the piano accordion, which has piano-style keys. Erich von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs categorize it as a free reed aero ...
Cyril Pahinui
Cyril Pahinui (April 21, 1950 – November 17, 2018) was a slack-key guitarist and singer of Hawaiian music.
Biography
He was born in Waimānalo at the foot of the Ko'olau mountains on the Hawai'ian island of Oahu. He was the son of the Hawa ...
Eva Ybarra
Eva Ybarra (born March 2, 1945) known as the "Queen of the Accordion", is a professional conjunto musician.
Early life
Ybarra was born on the west side of San Antonio, Texas, one of nine children. Her father was a truck driver. As a child, she ...
djeli
A griot (; ; Manding: jali or jeli (in N'Ko: , ''djeli'' or ''djéli'' in French spelling); Serer: kevel or kewel / okawul; Wolof: gewel) is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet, and/or musician.
The griot is a rep ...
decoy
A decoy (derived from the Dutch ''de'' ''kooi'', literally "the cage" or possibly ''ende kooi'', " duck cage") is usually a person, device, or event which resembles what an individual or a group might be looking for, but it is only meant to lu ...
folklorist
Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currenc ...
Onnik Dinkjian
Onnik Dinkjian ( hy, Oննիկ Տինքճեան; born 1929) is a French-born American-Armenian musician and singer. He is the father of Ara Dinkjian and has appeared with his son as well as other Armenian musicians such as Roupen Altiparmakian pl ...
Los Lobos
Los Lobos (, Spanish for "the Wolves") are an American rock band from East Los Angeles, California. Their music is influenced by rock and roll, Tex-Mex, country, zydeco, folk, R&B, blues, brown-eyed soul, and traditional music such as cu ...
Michael Cleveland
Michael Cleveland (born September 18, 1980) is an American bluegrass fiddle player.
Early life
Cleveland was born in Henryville, Indiana. He was born completely blind and a childhood ear infection caused him to lose 80% of his hearing in one ea ...
flamenco
Flamenco (), in its strictest sense, is an art form based on the various folkloric music traditions of southern Spain, developed within the gitano subculture of the region of Andalusia, and also having historical presence in Extremadura a ...
Navajo
The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people of the Southwestern United States.
With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest fe ...