NC Heritage Award Recipient Arnold Richardson to Perform at NC Museum of History

RALEIGH, N.C. - Oct. 30, 2013 - PRLog -- Arnold Richardson, known by his Iroquois name as Tsanedos:e, is a gifted musician and sculptor, and he has recently been named a recipient of the North Carolina Heritage Award. His extraordinary gift of flute playing brought him immediate notoriety as a top American Indian flutist in the East, and the North Carolina Arts Council awarded him a Folk Arts Grant to produce his first professional recording, Roanoke, in the 1990s. Since then, he has recorded other CDs of his own; he also has been featured on a number of additional albums. All of his recordings are original compositions, and he plays percussions as well as all other instrumentation. Richardson will be honored at the North Carolina Heritage Awards Ceremony on May 20, and you can see him in the Museum of History's intimate, 311-seat Daniels Auditorium for free on Sunday, Nov. 10!

Richardson's efforts to revitalize the cultural heritage of eastern North Carolina's American Indians have long been credited for the resurgence of artistic vitality among the eastern tribes. Richardson is a musician and an artist working in many different indigenous artistic traditions. Throughout a career spanning more than four decades, Richardson has taught tribal arts traditions to the Haliwa-Saponi as well as educating other state recognized tribes about revitalizing their own heritage.

A list of Richardson's accomplishments is staggering both for its depth and breadth. Every few years finds him researching and mastering a new tradition that he then teaches to a growing number of interested students at his home and in various communities in our state. Most recently, in addition to his prize-winning stone sculpture, pottery and beadwork, he has been recognized for the excellence of his gourd carving, an art form that he continues to perfect even while engaging in activities as varied as touring with the North Carolina Symphony and welcoming students of all ages, abilities, and ethnicities into his home in the Haliwa-Saponi community of Hollister.

“Arnold Richardson has studied, mastered and taught many of the artistic and performance traditions that mark contemporary eastern North Carolina Indian cultural expression,” said Sally Peterson, Director of the NC Folklife Institute. “Many Eastern Indian artists today cite Mr. Richardson's influence, instruction and inspiration as fundamental to their own artistic development.”

Program notes will be available, and large-print program notes will be available upon request.

Music of the Carolinas concerts are sponsored by Williams Mullen and the North Carolina Museum of History Associates, and the series is presented in partnership by PineCone-Piedmont Council of Traditional Music, and the North Carolina Museum of History.

Read more about Arnold Richardson: https://www.pinecone.org/event-detail.php?id=336

Read more about Music of the Carolinas: https://www.pinecone.org/music-of-the-carolinas.php

Read more about the 2013-2014 NC Heritage Award Recipients: https://www.pinecone.org/news_detail.php?newsID=83