National Awards for Individuals

National Heritage Fellowships

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) annually awards one-time-only National Heritage Fellowships to master folk and traditional artists. These fellowships recognize lifetime achievement, artistic excellence, and contributions to our nation's traditional arts heritage.

Hawai‘i Recipients of the National Heritage Fellowships

For more information, click on the links for the Lifetime Honors section of the National Endowment for the Arts website.

NEA Jazz Masters Fellowships

The National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Fellowship is the highest honor that our nation bestows upon a jazz musician.

The NEA Jazz Masters fellowship category is not open to application. Fellowships are awarded to living individuals on the basis of nominations from the public including the jazz community. Nominees must have nationally recognized and publicly accessible bodies of work in the field of jazz.

For more information, click on the links for the Lifetime Honors section of the National Endowment for the Arts website.

The National Medal of Arts

is the highest award given to artists and arts patrons by the United States Government. The National Medal of Arts is awarded by the President of the United States to individuals or groups who, in his judgment, "...are deserving of special recognition by reason of their outstanding contributions to the excellence, growth, support and availability of the arts in the United States."

This lifetime achievement award recognizes the extraordinary accomplishments of individuals engaged in the creation and production of the arts in the United States.

For more information, click on the links for the Lifetime Honors section of the National Endowment for the Arts website.

NEA Opera Honors

For the first time in 25 years Congress has authorized a new award to recognize lifetime achievement and individual excellence, the National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honors. This award will honor visionaries and luminaries who, by making extraordinary contributions to opera in the United States, have become cultural treasures of this great nation. This honor represents the highest recognition that our nation bestows in opera.

For more information, click on the links for the National Endowment for the Arts Opera Honors section of the National Endowment for the Arts website.

National Awards for Organizations

Coming Up Taller Awards

Coming Up Taller is an initiative of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities that made its first awards in 1998. The President's Committee partners with the Institute of Museum and Library Services, National Endowment for the Arts, and National Endowment for the Humanities to administer the program.

Coming Up Taller awards focus national attention on exemplary programs currently fostering the creative and intellectual development of America's children and youth through education and practical experience in the arts and the humanities. Accompanied by a cash award, the Coming Up Taller Awards not only reward these projects with recognition, but also contribute significant support to their continued work.

Award recipients receive $10,000 each, an individualized plaque, and an invitation to attend the annual Coming Up Taller Leadership Enhancement Conference. In addition, 35 exceptional youth arts and humanities programs across the country receive a Semifinalist Certificate of Excellence.

For more information, click on the links for the Coming Up Taller section of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities website.