This award will honor visionaries and luminaries who, by making extraordinary contributions to opera in the United States, have become cultural treasures of this great nation. This honor represents the highest recognition that our nation bestows in opera.

To honor and preserve our nation's diverse cultural heritage, the National Endowment for the Arts annually awards one-time-only NEA National Heritage Fellowships to master folk and traditional artists. These fellowships recognize lifetime achievement, artistic excellence and contributions to our nation’s traditional arts heritage.

The National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Fellowships are the highest honors that our nation bestows upon jazz musicians. These fellowships are given in recognition that this magnificent art form, so profoundly based in American culture, is one of America’s greatest gifts to the world.

The National Medal of Arts is awarded by the President of the United States to individuals or groups who, in his judgment, "...are deserving of special recognition by reason of their outstanding contributions to the excellence, growth, support and availability of the arts in the United States."