A nonprofit organization devoted to the public presentation of the folk arts, especially
folk-music performance, with headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland. The NCTA
performs a broad range of services and support for traditional artists. Its officers
conceptualize programs, identify artists, and publicize their availability to presenters.
They produce and make available recordings for distribution as well as for radio and
television broadcast.
The organization started in 1933 as the National Folk Festival Association and
produced the first multiethnic folk festival in the nation in 1934 in St. Louis, Missouri.
The first National Folk Festival was managed by Sarah Gertrude Knott, who sought
expert advice to identify high quality in folk performance.
The public presentation of folklore at festivals was just getting started in the 1930s.
The initial festival struggled financially and moved from city to city on an annual basis,
but the organizers were dealing consciously with finding the best traditional performers.
The National Folk Festival is still organized annually, has been held in twenty-two cities,
and moves to a new city every three years.
Since 1972 the organization has been a cooperating association of the National Park
Service, helping parks present tribal, folk, and community arts. In 1976 Joseph T.Wilson
was recruited as the new executive director of the organization. Under Wilson’s
leadership, the name was changed to the NCTA, which reflected the desire of the board
of directors to broaden its mission.
Thus, the NCTA embarked in 1979 on a program to take folk artists from particular
communities on tour to places beyond their normal performance locales. The idea was to
create new ways of touring folk artists. For example, the first tours were organized along
cultural, ethnic, or occupational themes. In 1979, with the assistance of Mick Moloney of
Philadelphia, the NCTA put together a tour of Irish performers called the “Green Fields
of America.” The NCTA also did an Appalachian tour and a French American tour of
performing arts from Louisiana, New England, and French Missouri. There was a
Swedish American tour, an Ozark tour, and a cowboy tour.
Some tours have been organized around particular musical instruments. For example,
“Masters of the Steel String Guitar” featured six different styles Americans use to play
the guitar: blues, Hawaiian, slack key, Dobro, Appalachian, and jazz. Another tour,
“Masters of the Folk Violin,” showed an equally varied menu of styles: Cape Breton,
Appalachian, Texas long bow, Cajun, jazz, and Irish. Other tours in this series include
“Masters of the Banjo” and “America’s Master Storytellers.”
These tours have differed from standard tours in that the NCTA chose not to promote
well-kenown artists. Performers have been chosen instead because they are excellent
representatives of particular cultures or musical styles. Audiences are presented with an
illustrated booklet that gives some of the history and current context of the art form. An emcee who is knowledgeable about the art form interviews the performers or interprets
them to the audience.
In its ongoing efforts to bring traditional music to new performance venues, the NCTA
has explored cosponsorship of concerts with a wide variety of community-based
presenters such as municipal governments, community colleges, rodeos, ethnic groups,
and civil rights organizations.
Angus Kress Gillespie