The National Council for the Traditional Arts (NCTA) The NCTA is the nation’s oldest multicultural arts presenting organization. For over eight decades, through festivals, tours, symposia, exhibits, and media productions, the NCTA has showcased the very best of the myriad grassroots folk, tribal and ethnic cultures that comprise our diverse nation.
About the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowships
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) National Heritage Fellowship is the highest honor that our nation bestows upon its folk and traditional artists. Each year, nine to thirteen individuals, “national living treasures” from across the nation, are chosen to receive this one-time-only Fellowship in recognition of lifetime achievement, artistic excellence and contributions to our nation’s cultural heritage.
Bess Lomax Hawes, first director of NEA’s Folk & Traditional Arts Program, created the National Heritage Fellowships in 1982. National Heritage Fellowships are awarded on an annual basis. Recipients are announced in early summer; the Fellowship award ceremonies and other activities take place the following fall.
For information on how to nominate a deserving traditional artist for a National Endowment for the Arts’ National Heritage Fellowship, visit the NEA’s website.
2023 NEA National Heritage Fellowship
The NEA celebrated the 2023 NEA National Heritage Fellows on September 28 and 29, 2023. For its first in-person Heritage Fellowship events since 2019, the NEA honored the most recent class of honorees and also brought them together with the 2020-2022 honorees to explore the legacy and impact of this lifetime honor.
WATCH the award ceremony livestream below:
Learn more about this year’s class of Fellows in the program book below:
Native Art Making in Place
WHAT: As part of a historic one-day gathering of National Heritage Fellowship honorees from 2020-2023, this special afternoon panel featured a film screening and conversation about Native art-making and the land, co-presented with the National Museum of the American Indian. NEA National Heritage Fellows shared firsthand stories of place and belonging as understood through their life’s work as traditional and community-based artists.
WHO: NEA National Heritage Fellows Ed Eugene Carriere (Suquamish), Anita Fields (Osage/Muscogee), Karen Ann Hoffman (Oneida Nation of Wisconsin), Roen Hufford, Elizabeth James-Perry (Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head, Aquinnah), TahNibaa Naataanii (Navajo/Diné), Francis P. Sinenci, and Wayne Valliere (Lac du Flambeau Ojibwe)
Watch National Heritage Fellow tributes
Starting in 2017, the NEA and the NCTA have worked with the Fellows, state arts agencies, folklorists and filmmakers to create short, documentary-style videos showcasing the artistry of each Fellow, their home community, and their traditions. These beautifully told tributes shine a light on the nation’s preeminent master artists and the diverse cultural communities they represent.
2017-present NEA National Heritage Fellow tributes
Watch recent National Heritage Fellowships Concerts & Film
For over 30 years, the NCTA has worked with the NEA on a consulting basis to manage and coordinate the annual week of activities in Washington, D.C. honoring Fellowship recipients. These include a Capitol Hill award ceremony, a banquet in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress and a culminating gala public concert featuring the Fellowship awardees produced by the NCTA.
2010-present NEA National Heritage Fellowships concerts
Listen to the latest from National Heritage Fellows
American Routes public radio series semi-annually airs programs highlighting recent National Heritage Fellows. Tune in on Thanksgiving and Memorial Day for these special programs. For the latest, click here.
NEA’s podcasts featuring National Heritage Fellows explore the honorees and their distinct art forms through one-on-one interviews.
Explore the interactive Masters of Tradition map
Masters of Tradition: A Cultural Journey Across America is an interactive story map and multimedia library from Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage showcasing the lives and works of National Heritage Fellows. Launching on September 16, this online resource documents and celebrates the rich cultural diversity of the United States.
“The folk and traditional arts which include music, crafts, dance, storytelling, and others are those that are learned as part of the cultural life of a community whose members share a common ethnic heritage, language, religion, occupation, or geographic region. These traditions are shaped by the aesthetics and values of a shared culture and are passed from generation to generation, most often within family and community through observation, conversation, and practice.”
National Endowment for the Arts
