Charleston, W.Va. – Mountain Stage, the home to live music on public radio, and Goldenseal magazine, West Virginia’s magazine of traditional life, were both presented with the Vandalia Award at the 2022 Vandalia Gathering Friday evening concert on May 27, 2022. West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History Curator Randall Reid-Smith presented the awards.

The Vandalia Award, West Virginia’s highest folklife honor, is presented each year during the annual Vandalia Gathering. The individuals and organizations who receive this award embody the spirit of our state’s folk heritage and are recognized for their lifetime contribution to West Virginia and its traditional culture.

For the last 38 years, Mountain Stage has been produced by West Virginia Public Broadcasting and distributed by NPR Music, each two-hour episode of Mountain Stage can be heard every week on nearly 300 stations across America, and around the world via NPR Music and mountainstage.org. Recorded in front of a live audience, Mountain Stage features performances from seasoned legends and emerging stars in genres ranging from folk, blues, and country; to indie rock, synth pop, world music, alternative, and beyond. After 38 years and more than 900 episodes, the program’s original host and co-founder Larry Groce handed over full-time hosting responsibilities to W.Va. native and Grammy winner Kathy Mattea in September of 2021.

Goldenseal is produced by the Department of Arts, Culture and History and takes its stories from the recollections of West Virginians living throughout the state. Oral history fieldwork and documentary photography result in four issues per year with articles on subjects such as labor history, folklore, music, farming, religion, traditional crafts, food, and politics. Goldenseal was first published in April 1975 by the West Virginia Department of Commerce and the Arts and Humanities Council. Founding editor Tom Screven wrote in the first issue that the purpose of Goldenseal was to “serve not only as a device to preserve many aspects of the state’s traditional life, but also as a means of communication for students and enthusiasts of West Virginia’s folklife.”

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