Every time there was a rural sports demonstration at the Folklife Festival’s Frontoia, or Basque handball court, you could hear cheers of “aupa neskak!”—let’s go, girls!

George Abe is an energetic, enigmatic man. A Japanese American born and raised in California, he presented and performed as part of the Sounds of California program.

Based in San Antonio, Texas, Los Texmaniacs is a Grammy Award-winning Smithsonian Folkways conjunto rock band.

The western edge of the Basque: Innovation by Culture program at the 2016 Folklife Festival took visitors straight into Portua, or “the port.”

As Smithsonian Folkways artists, Chicano rock band Quetzal has appeared at the Folklife Festival multiple times, this year representing the Sounds of California.

In 2014, the family sold 600 grams (1.3 pounds) of their Basque Idiazabal cheese for €13,050, or approximately $14,000.

Jesus Mari Lazkano is a professor at the University of the Basque Country and outdoor enthusiast known for his fantastic surrealist landscape paintings inspired by the Basque landscapes he encounters on a daily basis.

Nestled between two bustling areas—food concessions and the Sounds of California—the On the Move: Migration and Immigration Today tent engaged visitors in conversations beyond the polarizing political debates currently taking place within our society.

Beyond the 2016 Folklife Festival, Sounds of California is part of a collaborative project with the Alliance for California Traditional Arts and Radio Bilingüe.

One of the most telling marks of mastery is the apparent ease with which an artist approaches his or her craft—the willingness with which the material complies with their hand, chisel, brush, or hammer to form the objects we admire.