Arizona artists selected to help pass on their practices, culture to emerging talents

The award offers financial support to master traditional artists living in Arizona to pass on art, culture and heritage practices to apprentice learners.

The artists will receive $5,000 each and another $500 will go to emerging artist mentees.

The winners were nominated by community members and selected by a panel of cultural leaders and peers.

This year’s awardees are:

Jing Xia moved to Tucson over a decade ago. She is a master of the guzheng, a plucked 21-string Chinese zither, which she started learning as a 4-year-old in China.

Porfirio “Pilo” Mora has over 40 years of experience creating pottery in the Mata Ortiz tradition, which originated in the village of Mata Ortiz, Chihuahua, Mexico.

J. Javier Enríquez is a mariachi composer and director of Los Cuatro Vientos mariachi quartet. He began learning mariachi music at Tucson High School and studied voice in the Tucson Arizona Boys Chorus.

Kathleen Vance specializes in Tohono O’odham utilitarian pottery, creating clay cooking vessels, water ollas, seed jars, effigy pots and whistles. She learned from Alicia Bustamonte, in northern Mexico, and later Later Reuben Naranjo, Jr., in Sells.

Maximiliano Larrea is a master Argentine “Mestizon” guitarist and director of the Tango Guitar Project. He has collaborated with musical groups in Argentina and in Tucson, where he now lives.

Rhonda Coleman is part of the capoeira community of Grupo Capoeira Angola Guerreiro de Palmares. Her movement background includes West African, Honduran and Afro-Brazilian dance. She has studied and performed in New Orleans and learned from masters in Honduras and Brazil. In Tucson, she dances with Barbea Williams Performing Arts company.

Ancliff “Ansel” Joseph, 81, is a master steel pan (steel drum) maker and performer in Goodyear, Arizona.

Ken Koshio is a taiko player who also plays the Shamisen (a three-stringed instrument) and Shinobue (a bamboo flute). He plays and teaches taiko in both the U.S and Japan, where he was born. He is based in Phoenix.

Andrea Gallegos is one of the first female mariachi directors in the Southwest. Gallegos has been playing and singing mariachi music for 29 years. At 13 years old, she helped start Mariachi Sonido de Mexico in Tucson in 1997. She became its director in 2005.

Fitzgerald DeFreitas creates award-winning carnival-type costumes called “mas” (from masquerade) in Caribbean carnival celebrations. He lives in El Mirage, Arizona.

Since 2015, the program has provided awards to nearly 80 master artists.

Southwest Folklife Alliance produces the annual Tucson Meet Yourself Folklife Festival.