NEA Announces Recipients of Nation’s Highest Award in the Folk and Traditional Arts
Each year the National Endowment for the Arts celebrates master folk and traditional artists that embody this strength and diversity of culture. The recipients of this year’s NEA National Heritage Fellowships represent art forms ranging from those born and bred in the United States such as the quilters of Gee’s Bend from Alabama to those that are newer to our country such as the oud playing of Rahim AlHaj, who immigrated to the United States from Baghdad. The fellowships include an award of $25,000.
The 2015 NEA National Heritage Fellowship recipients are:
- Rahim AlHaj (Albuquerque, NM) — oud player and composer
- Michael Alpert (New York, NY) — Yiddish musician and tradition bearer
- Mary Lee Bendolph, Lucy Mingo, and Loretta Pettway (Boykin, AL) — quilters of Gee’s Bend
- Dolly Jacobs (Sarasota, FL) — circus aerialist
- Yary Livan (Lowell, MA) — Cambodian ceramicist
- Daniel Sheehy* (Falls Church, VA) — ethnomusicologist/folklorist
- Drink Small (Columbia, SC) — blues artist
- Gertrude Yukie Tsutsumi (Honolulu, HI) — Japanese classical dancer
- Sidonka Wadina (Lyons, WI) — Slovak straw artist/egg decorator
*Daniel Sheehy is the recipient of the Bess Lomax Hawes NEA National Heritage Fellowship Award. The Bess Lomax Hawes Award recognizes an individual who has made a significant contribution to the preservation and awareness of cultural heritage.