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Mipso is a band that defies classification. The iconic North Carolina sounds of bluegrass and old-time flow throughout their music, which is equally influenced by the Triangle’s storied indie music community.
Ron Rash is a leading voice of Appalachia and the mountains of our state loom large in his biography and body of work. The best-selling novelist and poet grew up summering on his grandmother’s farm outside of Blowing Rock, in a region where his ancestors settled in the 1700s. He’s known for vividly capturing the people, places and atmosphere of the mountains in his writing and is a beloved mentor to many young authors. Ron has received the O.
Monét Noelle Marshall is performance artist, director and choreographer known for her thought-provoking, community-driven projects that explore race, identity, and gender. She is one of two recipients of the 2018 Mary B. Regan Artist Residency Award, a North Carolina Arts Council grant designed to support innovative art projects that impact communities.
Mary Carter Taub believes in making art for all people. Based in Chapel Hill, her work has appeared on buses, university campuses, airports, train stations, and public locations that allow folks from all walks of life to experience art. She is one of two recipients of the 2018 Mary B. Regan Artist Residency Award, a North Carolina Arts Council grant designed to support innovative art projects that impact communities.
Billy Edd Wheeler says a good song just grabs you from the start. He would know.
Thirty years ago somewhere in the middle of nowhere in the great American west, two twenty-somethings decided it would be fun to start a record label. The duo, Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance, noted a desert road sign on their cross-country trip back to North Carolina and decided to name the label after it: Merge. It was 1989, and the mission of Merge was simple: to release music made by them and their friends.
Edward Riley Ray, commonly known as Eddie Ray, is a North Carolina treasure and commercial music industry icon. Born in 1926 in Western North Carolina, Eddie worked his way up from stock-boy at a Milwaukee record distribution warehouse to the gilded executive rooms of America’s biggest record labels. A true innovator, Eddie relied on his gut instinct, appetite for work, and disregard for social and industry norms to build a career that contributed to the success of musicians like Ricky Nelson, Fats Domino, and Pink Floyd.
Rob Levin is a glass artist and sculptor based in Burnsville, North Carolina. Like so many artists in the Toe River region of western North Carolina, Rob was drawn to the area by Penland School of Craft, where he first fell in love with glassmaking.
It was big news when Tift Merritt returned to Raleigh, North Carolina last year. Born in Houston, T.X. but planted in the City of Oaks by the age of two, the Grammy-nominated songstress began making waves in the early 2000s with her dynamic voice and evocative song writing. Last year she and her daughter Jean moved back to her hometown after a nine-year stint in New York City, marking a new chapter of Tift’s career anchored in family, writing, and roots.