New-Music-USAwaveform

New Music USA Awards $311,000 to Artists

New Music USA has awarded 57 projects in its second round of New Music USA project grants. We received 1,174 project requests this round. Those numbers are humbling, but also inspiring; these submissions only capture a glimpse of the overwhelming creativity resonating throughout the United States today.

Written By

Emily Bookwalter

New Music USA(waveform)
Today is an exciting day for New Music USA; we are thrilled to award $311,000 to the 57 projects comprising our second round of project grants awardees.  Our organization and the 43 peer panelists who helped us make our awards are delighted to support an amazing group of projects. During the eight months since the grant program was launched in November 2013, it has provided more than $648,000 for a diverse range of projects involving new American music.

We received 1,174 project requests this round!  The total amount requested represented the need for more than 9.8 million dollars in support. Those numbers in relation to our current funding capacity are humbling, but also inspiring; these submissions only capture a glimpse of the overwhelming creativity resonating throughout the United States today. We wish we could support even more.

The awarded projects are as eclectic as they are diverse—from multi-piece bagpipe commissions to afro-bop big band, to orchestral works, first recordings, and interactive works for dance. This group is provocative, fresh, and immensely talented.
Because a large part of why we exist is to support new American music, we are delighted that over half of our awarded funds this round are for the creation and commission of new work around the United States. There are also many who will be using funds to travel, for dance, to create scores and parts, to pay artists and collaborators, and to bring preexisting pieces to life in new contexts throughout the world.

The world of our funded projects can be found on newmusicusa.org, where the funded project pages can be discovered, complete with artist profiles, work samples, project information, dates, and photos. Anyone exploring those pages can listen to, watch, and experience the diverse array of these awardees’ works. Furthermore, creating a profile on our website allows individuals—you—to follow any of the awarded projects and choose to receive updates on that project by email. Creating a profile is the starting point for experiencing projects and discovering new artists. To find out how, read this. To experience a sampling of the music that is created by our awardees, hit “play” on one of the SoundCloud or YouTube playlists we’ve assembled of all of our awardees and their work samples.
New Music USA featured projects 7-2-14
Our approach to project grants continues to be driven by the conviction that artists should tell us what they need, instead of us telling them what we think they should want. It is driven by the conviction that artists should spend as much time as possible creating and easily sharing their art instead of writing grants, and that funding opportunities should be simple and free. So far, we hope that our streamlined, public platform helps artists across the country simply ask for crucial support while easily sharing their artistic ideas with a larger community. When we look at the sum of our awardees’ efforts, we’re proud of the results.