Sisters Folk Festival announces scholarships

Last updated 7/7/2020 at Noon

Sisters Folk Festival’s Americana Project and the Graduate Research Organization (GRO) have announced the recipients of their 2020 scholarship awards. Sisters Folk Festival awarded a total of $4,000 to six Sisters High School seniors who have participated in performing and/or visual arts, as well as photography and digital arts during high school, in order to help support their pursuit of these interests after graduation.

The Sisters Folk Festival’s Americana Project, in collaboration with Sisters School District, supports students at Sisters High School through its classes in performing arts, visual arts, and luthier instrument building programs. Scholarships have been awarded for the past 17 years to graduating seniors, helping students to continue with their education beyond high school.

SFF’s Americana Project programming extends into the elementary and middle schools to provide comprehensive music and arts programming for all students, unique to most schools in Central Oregon and beyond.

Maddison Anderson has worked in visual arts and illustration and graduated as one of the valedictorians for the class of 2020. Anderson also contributed a painted guitar to this year’s SFF My Own Two Hands art auction.

Daniel Schmidt, owner of Dan Schmidt Productions, helped develop an alpine ski building class at Sisters High School, has been key to the Americana Luthier program in guitar building for the past several years, and worked in digital arts creating numerous videos throughout his high school career, including a comprehensive introduction for the Sisters High School graduation ceremony.

Josie Aylor, an award-winning artist, has developed a keen sense and unique perspective of ceramic arts and shines working in many mediums.

Hallie Schwartz participated in Americana Project music the last two years and is a strong singer and interpreter of songs.

Chloe Gold, an accomplished songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, was the recording coordinator for the recent release of “Playing to Grow,” a video compilation of Americana Project songs and an effective leader in the Americana Project program. Mitchell Griffin has studied digital photography, has an impressive portfolio and plans to continue to pursue his passion in photographic arts.

Sisters Folk Festival intends for the award resources to be used in these students’ pursuit of creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills that they can apply to the challenges facing the world today.

For more information on the GRO scholarship program, visit http://shs.ssd6.org/sistersgro/.