North Carolina Heritage Award

Since 1989, the North Carolina Heritage Award has honored our state’s most eminent traditional artists and practitioners. Recipients of the Heritage Awards range from internationally acclaimed musicians to folks who quietly practice their art in family and community settings. Awardees receive a cash award and are honored in a ceremony that draws large and enthusiastic audiences. Several North Carolinians have gone on to receive the National Heritage Fellowship Awards presented by the National Endowment for the Arts.

These awards deepen our awareness of North Carolina’s diverse cultural traditions, and their importance to our state’s past, present and future.

Heritage Award recipients are nominated by citizens of the state and selected through panel process.

Explore video tributes to these artists for their individual artistic accomplishments and for representing the cultural treasures found in our communities small and large, rural and urban.

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Heritage Award Recipients

Heritage Award Recipients

Cornelio Campos, Rhonda Gouge, Neal Thomas, Richard Bowman, Butch and Louise Goings
Arvil Freeman, Glenn and Lula Bolick, Asha Bala, Tony Williamson, and Dick Knight
Sheila Kay Adams, The Lewis Family Boatbuilders, H Ju Nie and H Ngach Rahlan, Maceo Parker, and Marc Pruett