Mid-Columbia Community Concert Association

Midori Hirose, born in Hood River, Oregon, is a Japanese American interdisciplinary artist based in Portland. Through sculpture, sound, and social ritual, she explores material storytelling as a portal to memory, perception, and transformation.

Her practice bridges care labor and poetic research, turning complex histories and communal connections into dimensional, tactile forms. Hirose co-leads a mutual aid collective supporting protest safety and community resilience, informing her ongoing inquiries into collective care and embodied resistance.

Her work transforms shared spaces into sites of relational alchemy and slow, subversive repair. It has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including “Labor of Love” at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, “Of the Unicorn (and the Sundowner Kids)” with the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, and East/West Project in Berlin. Her installations invite intimacy, tension, and radical possibility.

Mineral County Performing Arts Council (MCPAC)

Mission Valley Live

Moab Music Festival Inc

Mount Baker Theatre

Mountain Home Arts Council, Inc.

Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana

Municipality of Rota

Music Associates of Aspen, Inc.

Music From Angel Fire

Music of Tom Hoffmann

Mutually Assured Productions

Discipline: Multidisciplinary

Starting his musical journey in freshman year of high school was not exactly the earliest start for some, but it is just enough to change a life. Nathaniel Dafrad was a Tri-M Music alumnus who studied as a percussionist under Max Ronquillo Jr. for two years and then self-studied. He obtained knowledge from every performance he participated in, from the GATE Theatre Production’s Cinderella to the Guam Territorial Band’s anniversary concerts.

He took to the stage and rose to new heights well within his high school career, beginning with his first off-island tour to Saipan back in 2018 while representing Okkodo High School in multiple band exchanges, and extending to his first introduction to the Summa Cum Laude Music Festival in Vienna 2024 where he would represent the Tumon Bay Youth Orchestra and the Guam Territorial Band. Dafrad aims to share the joy and wondrous journey of music by aiding in any musical project on the island.

National Institute of Flamenco

New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology

Discipline: Folklife/Traditional Arts

Nicholas King is a product of the 1979 Am. Samoa Arts Council’s Summer Youth Program held at the Jean P. Haydon Museum in Fagatogo. “Nick” was 13-years old when the late Mary Pritchard introduced him to Samoan Siapo making. He was selected by Mary and the American Samoa Arts Council to tour with the Arts Council Choir as a Siapo demonstrator. He toured with the group for 5 years. His artwork has developed from using traditional U’a, natural dyes to using modern materials, items, inks, and paints.  King’s true belief is that “our only limit… is our imagination.”

Nitya Nritya Foundation

Discipline: Folklife/Traditional Arts

Nofo T. Alofagaimanu proudly from Vailoatai and Tula villages in American Samoa. A traditional weaver in Samoan handicrafts, participated in Pacific Arts Festival for 2 years as a student representing American Samoa as a siapo(tapa) maker, loves braiding hakus(pale) and leis(ulas) for traditional occasions if requested. Taught by her Late grandmother, ASCC instructor Regina Meredith, practices all these skills and knowledge through traditional and visual arts. Her art honors Samoan Culture, women duties in connection with family, church, village as well with her community as a whole. She also shares her gifts in schools, church, women committees and a vision to preserve these Indigenous arts in any form of activities through storytelling, exhibits, performs orator duties through family functions, creativity and cultural healing as well.

Her passion is to let all single artists in American Samoa work together so that we can make a difference to uplift our Pacific traditions with respect, especially speaking our own mother tongue languages. She dedicated her accomplishment for loving to write short children’s stories to her mother Sara Unasa-Teo, her daughters, grandchildren and her husband Aofagaimanu for never ending support. 

North Star Community Foundation/Healing thru Music & Dance

Northeastern Arts Network

Northern Arizona Book Festival

Northglenn Arts & Humanities Foundation

Northwest Folklife