Washington, D.C. — Eleven master artists from around the country will arrive in Washington, D.C. the week of September 15th for a series of celebratory events to honor their receipt of a 2008 National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. The fellowship is the nation’s highest honor in the folk and traditional [...]

Mac Wiseman, who has plowed deep ruts over several decades on the bluegrass circuit, has been named a National Heritage Fellowship Award recipient by the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) in Washington, D.C. The prestigious award, initiated by NEA in 1982, honors American folk artists for “their contributions to our national cultural mosaic,” according [...]

“Wiseman began to sing in public at the age of 12, but he was stricken with polio in his youth and that curtailed his performances for a time. With the help of the National Foundation of Polio, he attended music school in Dayton, Virginia. Soon he was singing on a local radio station in Harrisonburg, [...]