National Council For The Traditional Arts

Programs: National park service work: for 48 years, the ncta has had a cooperative agreement with the national park service to assist parks across the country with the research, planning, presentation and documentation of cultural heritage programs, exhibits and other special projects, and to help local nonprofit groups organize cultural events in national parks. In 2017, the ncta worked with eight parks in locations across the country.

folk and traditional arts-focused public programs (national scope of activities): founded in 1933, the ncta is the nation's oldest folk arts organization. A producer of a broad range of public programs, most of them free, the ncta stresses excellence and authenticity in brining traditional artists representing the nation's diverse cultural communities to the public. Programs include: the traveling national folk festival, the nation's oldest and longest-running multicultural celebration of traditional arts, tours, concerts, workshops, demonstrations, cross-cultural exchanges, radio and television programs, exhibitions, school programs, residencies, recordings, among others. Ncta works to build sustainable events of lasting cultural, social and economic value in communities around the nation.

services to nea's folk & traditional arts program: for 34 years, the ncta has worked with the nea's folk and traditional arts program to coordinate and manage the events/activities of the annual nea national heritage fellowships, the highest federal honor for folk and traditional artists.

archive preservation: the ncta maintains an archive of original audio recordings of traditional music dating from the 1930's, with extensive materials from the 1960's forward. A multi-year project to preserve, copy and digitize the entire collection is underway. Portions of the ncta collection that have already been preserved and digitized, (over 7,000 hours to date), are now permanently housed at the american folklife center of the library of congress.