State arts projects get grants from NEA National Folk Festival in Bangor gets $80,000

WASHINGTON – The National Endowment for the Arts has awarded nearly $900,000 to benefit cultural organizations around the state, according to Maine’s Congressional delegation.

Among the recipients are:

. Eastern Maine Development Corp., Bangor – $80,000 to support the National Folk Festival to be held in Bangor this summer. The festival will offer a variety of cultural and entertainment offerings. This award was previously announced.

. Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance, Old Town – $25,000 for the Next Generation Project, which will engage tribal members ages 13-30 in one-on-one apprenticeships with master weavers.

. Arcady Music Society, Bar Harbor – $25,000 to help pay for a tour by musicians of the Arcady Summer Music Festival. Chamber ensembles and other musicians will travel to six rural communities in Maine. During each of the six weeks of the summer festival, artists will visit a town in a rural area to perform.

. Penobscot Theatre Company, Bangor – $8,000 to support a production of “The Diary of Anne Frank,” and an accompanying outreach project. A series of multicultural and intergenerational initiatives for schools, libraries, and senior centers will engage the theater’s community in an examination of bigotry in the contacts of religion, ethnicity and other issues.

. Cultural Resources Inc., Rockport – $20,000 to assist in a variety of activities promoting traditional artists and traditions in the midcoast region.

. Maine Alliance for Arts Education, Augusta – $30,000 to help expand the Building Communities Through the Arts program.

. Maine Arts Commission, Augusta – $25,000 for its Folk Arts Apprenticeship Program and another $596,000 for additional partnership agreement activities.

. Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, Newcastle – $16,000 to help expand the services of MudMobile, a statewide traveling ceramics program in a van, allowing greater access to the elderly.

. Portland Museum of Art – $32,000 to support an exhibit on Portland’s Golden Age: 1800-1860, and another $15,000 to support the AXIS (Artists Exchange Ideas with Students).