Son Fandango is a traditional music group from southern Veracruz, Mexico. This group was formed in the Bay Area by Claudio Vega and Lolis García. The son jarocho they perform is a mix of the countryside and the city. Claudio’s main project is to invite renowned traditional son jarocho musicians…
Ziying Zhao, a guqin performer in the United States, is a member of The Global Outstanding Chinese Artists Association and the World Chinese Musicians Association. Praised for her talent, a guqin educator from the Tianjin Conservatory of Music once remarked, “She must have been a guqin artist in her previous…
Dr. Ellorin is the leading expert on maritime Southeast Asian gong-chime music in Southern California. He is also a master of the Filipino banduria (a version of the Spanish bandurria, a plucked string instrument similar to the mandolin) and the associated rondalla music. He is versed in the percussion music…
Makeda Kumasi (MFA / M.Ed) is the founder of WE 3 PRODUCTIONS, as well as the co-founder and artistic director of The Umoja Ensemble of the Inland Empire. Along with being a featured performer on stage and T.V., Kumasi has danced for two prominent Southern California based African dance ensembles,…
Opportunities to Support Folk & Traditional Arts in the United States
Charya Burt is an acclaimed master dancer, choreographer, vocalist and teacher of Classical Cambodian Dance. After the Khmer Rouge genocide, Burt trained extensively with Cambodia’s foremost surviving dance masters, eventually joining the dance faculty of Cambodia’s Royal University of Fine Arts. As a member of Cambodia’s…
Bay Area Tibetan opera singer receives our nation's highest honor in the traditional arts
Youngmin Lee is a textile artist uses bojagi tradition and techniques to create her work. Her interest in textiles led her to study Clothing and Textile in college and received an MFA in Fashion Design in South Korea. She has researched bojagi making and techniques and endeavor to…
Congratulations to the beloved California artists honored this year with the 2021 National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts: Philippine Rondalla master Tagumpay de Leon of Burbank and Mexican-American rock band Los Lobos of Los Angeles!…
The Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA) will join the Southwest Folklife Alliance and the First Peoples Fund to strengthen the folk & traditional arts field through a new National Folklife Network. The Southwest Folklife Alliance (SFA), a nonprofit organization affiliated with the University of…