IBMA Honors Appalshop Director Art Menius

The International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) honored Appalshop director Art Menius with its Distinguished Achievement Award at a ceremony in Nashville, Tennessee on Thursday, October 2. IBMA's Distinguished Achievement Award is an honor which recognizes ground-breaking work and fostering the music's image and accessibility. In addition to Menius, this year's recipients are artist Bill Harrell, The Banjo Newsletter, The Ernest Tubb Record Shop, and Joe Carr & Alan Munde, known for their contributions to the genre as artists and educators.

Menius became the director of Appalshop on July 2, 2007, following a decade of handling marketing and sponsorship for MerleFest at Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro, North Carolina - one of the largest festivals in the world that features bluegrass music prominently. Menius entered the entertainment field as a writer and production assistant for The Nashville Network bluegrass and old-time music series, Fire on the Mountain, hosted by David Holt from 1983-86. In 1983 he began writing reviews and feature articles about roots music for publications ranging from Bluegrass Unlimited to The News & Observer in Raleigh, with a long tenure at the The Independent Weekly, based in Durham. In addition to writing more than 500 articles to date, Menius also promoted a live performance bluegrass radio series on 117 commercial stations, emceed at dozens of music festivals, conducted the first survey of bluegrass festival attendees and served as consultant on the acclaimed film, High Lonesome: The Story of Bluegrass Music.

In 1985 Menius was one of the two dozen founders of the IBMA, and he took the job as the organization's first executive director later that year. In 1990 the North American Folk Music & Dance Alliance, the Folk Alliance, elected Menius the president of its first board of directors, and he served as their first manager from 1991-96. Menius served on the IBMA board from 1998-2004, as well as on the board for the Old-Time Music Group from 1991-1998. He's currently on the board for both the Kentucky Center for Traditional Music and the Folk Alliance. In June he was inducted into the Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame.