NEA Lifetime Honors Announced

The 2008 NEA National Heritage Fellows will come to Washington, DC, in September for events culminating in a concert at the Music Center at Strathmore on September 19, 2008. The recipients are Nez Perce drum maker, singer, and tradition-bearer Horace P. Axtell; saddlemaker Dale Harwood; quilter Bettye Kimbrell; Peruvian retablo (portable altar boxes) maker Jeronimo E. Lozano; the Oneida Hymn Singers of Wisconsin; Korean dancer and musician Sue Yeon Park; Ethiopian liturgical musician/scholar Moges Seyoum; capoeira (Afro-Brazilian art form) master Jelon Vieira; traditional jazz musician/bandleader Dr. Michael White; bluegrass musician Mac Wiseman; and traditional arts specialist and advocate Walter Murray Chiesa, the recipient of the 2008 Bess Lomax Hawes Award. The NEA National Heritage Fellowship program is presented with support from the Darden Restaurants Foundation. The six 2009 NEA Jazz Masters recipients will be honored on October 17, 2008, at Frederick P. Rose Hall, home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, in New York City. They are guitarist and vocalist George Benson, drummer Jimmy Cobb, saxophonist Lee Konitz, harmonica player and guitarist Toots Thielemans, and trumpeter Snooky Young. Legendary recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder will receive the 2009 A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy. For more information on all of these lifetime honors, please visit www.arts.gov/honors/index.html.

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