NC Heritage Awards Concert with The Glorifying Vines Sisters

This June, come celebrate North Carolina’s rich artistic heritage at this showcase honoring the latest recipients of the North Carolina Heritage Award – including Music Maker artists The Glorifying Vines Sisters!

The awards showcase will be held on Saturday, June 7 from 2:30-5:00 PM at A.J. Fletcher Theater (2 E. South Street, Raleigh, NC 27601). Tickets on sale now through PineCone! General admission is $15-25.

Awarded by the North Carolina Arts Council, the NC Heritage Award is the state’s highest honor for folk artists. The 2025 honorees include:

• The Glorifying Vines Sisters, a gospel quartet (and Music Maker partner artists!) from Farmville
• Gaurang Doshi, a North Indian classical musician from Winston-Salem
• Helen Gibson, a woodcarver from western NC
• Chester McMillian, a Round Peak guitarist from Mount Airy
• Herman and Loretta Oxendine, Lumbee artisans from Pembroke

The five honorees will share inspiring stories of their lifelong dedication to craft through live on-stage interviews, documentary film presentations, musical performances, and a display of artwork. Full of music, art, and community, this uplifting afternoon will leave you feeling proud to call North Carolina home.

The Glorifying Vines Sisters

The Glorifying Vines Sisters are one of North Carolina’s longest-established quartet-style gospel groups, having spent more than 60 years as professional touring and recording artists. The four original Vines Sisters—Alice, Dorothy, Mattie, and Audrey—came from a large family with deep roots in Pitt County and sprawling artistic talent. In their early years, the sisters sang with their other siblings as the Heavenly Ten at the Union Grove Baptist Church, near Farmville. Later, they formed the smaller group the Glorifying Vines Sisters. Their music is steeped in the traditions of quartet gospel, a style that came into its own in the 1930s with such groups as the Soul Stirrers and the Dixie Hummingbirds. Over the years, they have shared the stage with many of the biggest names in the genre, including the Mighty Clouds of Joy and the Swanee Quintet.

Dorothy Vines Daniels died in 2022 and Mattie suffered a stroke not long afterward, but until then, their husbands, Johnny Ray Daniels and Curtis Vines, were also part of the band. Alice, the group’s manager, carries on her family’s legacy, often accompanied by Audrey and younger family members.

Alice Vines’s influence reaches beyond the Vines Sisters, as she has become a major voice in eastern North Carolina’s gospel scene, a spiritual leader through her own church, and an active organizer of gospel programs. The children of the Vines sisters, raised in their family’s music, are keeping the tradition vibrant through celebrated gospel groups of their own.