OARS funding Music & Theater

The Harry Ransom Center fellowship program at the University of Texas at Austin was established in 1989 under the directorship of Thomas F. Staley to encourage and facilitate use of the center's collections for scholarly inquiry. The program enables scholars from around the world to visit the center and conduct on-site research in its extensive collections of manuscripts, rare books, photographs, artworks, and other materials documenting America's cultural history and the creative process In 2020-21, the center will award ten dissertation fellowships and up to fifty postdoctoral fellowships for projects that require substantial on-site use of the center's collections. The collections support research in all areas of the humanities, including literature, photography, film, art, the performing arts, music, and cultural history. Through the program, recipients receive $3,500 per month for one to three months. Travel stipends and dissertation fellowships provide stipends of $2,000. International fellows will receive an additional $500 to offset visa and travel costs. 

The Cooperative Agreement resulting from this Program Solicitation can start no earlier than July 1, 2020, and may extend for up to 18 months. An organization may submit only one proposal under this program solicitation. Program Description The Sound Health program seeks to expand public understanding of the connections between music and wellness: how music is processed by the brain, how music can impact development and learning, and the therapeutic use of music for specific health conditions. Launched in 2016, Sound Health is a partnership between the National Institutes of Health ("NIH") and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts ("Kennedy Center"), in association with the National Endowment for the Arts ("Arts Endowment") (individually known as "Partner" and collectively known as "the Partnership").

Grants will be awarded to arts organizations in support of activities aimed at identifying, implementing, and refining new strategies with the potential to have far-reaching effects in helping them do their best work. Activities supported include the development and testing of promising ideas or new approaches to solving chronic organizational challenges or to pursuing emerging opportunities (e.g., building audiences, diversifying income, shifting fundraising strategies, new business or operating models, or engaging new communities). Collaborative efforts also are eligible.

To support performing and presenting organizations whose artistic excellence encourages and improves public knowledge and appreciation of serious contemporary American music.

Through its Performance Program, the fund supports performing and presenting organizations whose artistic excellence encourages and improves public knowledge and appreciation of serious contemporary American music. General support grants of up to $20,000 will be awarded to professional performing ensembles and presenting organizations with a history of substantial commitment to contemporary American music and as well as plans to continue that commitment. The program also provides project support for exceptionally important activities related to contemporary American music proposed by professional performing ensembles and presenting organizations that do not normally feature contemporary American music in their programming.

An organization may submit only one proposal under this program solicitation. This Cooperative Agreement will begin no earlier than March 1, 2020, and extend for up to 24 months and no fewer than 12 months. Program Description NEA Research Labs are intended to serve as "hubs" or centers of excellence in the domain of interest. Each NEA Research Lab will develop a pipeline of projects or products, even while conducting at least one major study. In addition, NEA Research Labs will be positioned to fulfill ad hoc analyses or information requests concerning the research agenda being pursued, as may be required during the project period of performance. Such requests will not involve new data collection. Priority will be given to applications that show capacity to design and implement a series of studies based on theory-driven research questions and methodologies that will yield important information about the impact of the arts within the selected topic area. Research methodologies may include such approaches as quasi-experimental or experimental designs, or analyses that use primary and/or secondary data. Competitive applications will take into account any extant research that serves as a basis for a theoretical framework and helps to motivate the proposed studies. We also welcome novel and promising research approaches, such as rigorous analyses of organizational or social networks, and/or social media data, and statistically driven meta-analyses. In addition, we are interested in translational research that moves scientific evidence toward the development, testing, and standardization of new arts-related projects, models, tools, or techniques that can be used easily by other practitioners and researchers.

Created by its namesake in keeping with his lifelong devotion to contemporary music, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music seeks to encourage and improve public knowledge and appreciation of contemporary American music. Through its Performance Program, the fund supports performing and presenting organizations whose artistic excellence encourages and improves public knowledge and appreciation of serious contemporary American music. General support grants of up to $20,000 will be awarded to professional performing ensembles and presenting organizations with a history of substantial commitment to contemporary American music and as well as plans to continue that commitment. The program also provides project support for exceptionally important activities related to contemporary American music proposed by professional performing ensembles and presenting organizations that do not normally feature contemporary American music in their programming.

The Prairie Ronde Artist Residency is located in historic Vicksburg, Michigan, near Kalamazoo. The residency offers access to the 420,000-square foot former Lee Paper Company paper mill and its adjacent 80 acres of property to use as inspiration. From the French meaning "round meadow," the residency is named for the swaths of grasses and wildflowers that once dotted the landscape of southwest Michigan. First settled in 1831, Vicksburg is a quaint, rural village surrounded by lush agricultural land dotted with lakes, stands of hardwood forests, and gently flowing streams. Through the program, visual artists, writers, and musicians will receive a $2,000 stipend, a $500 travel grant, and the private use of a car for a residency of between four and seven weeks. Artists are encouraged to use Prairie Ronde's close ties to members of the village community and the area's creative community and ask that artists propose a community "give back" such as a workshop, final show, or open studio days, as well as donate a piece of work to the Prairie Ronde collection.

Since 1965, the Stage Directors and Choreographers Workshop Foundation has fostered, promoted, and developed the creativity and craft of stage directors and choreographers. SDC provides opportunities to practice the crafts of directing and choreography; gathers and disseminates craft and career information; promotes the profession to emerging talent; provides opportunities for exchange of knowledge among directors and choreographers; increases the awareness of the value of directors' and choreographers' work; and convenes around issues affecting theater artists. To that end, the foundation currently is accepting applications for its Observership Program. The program provides early- to mid-career directors and choreographers paid opportunities to observe the work of master directors and choreographers as they create productions on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and at leading regional theaters across the country. SDCF Observers may have access to the entire rehearsal process, from first rehearsal through opening night, and will observe first-hand the techniques, disciplines, approaches, and insights of master artists as they create new productions and revive classics.

The colony currently is accepting applications from emerging and established artists for its fall fellowship program in the following disciplines: architecture, film/video arts, interdisciplinary arts, literature, music composition, theater, and visual arts. The fellowship includes exclusive use of a private studio, accommodations, and three prepared meals a day for a period of two weeks to two months.

AIIS fellowships are granted in 4 areas: Junior Research Fellowships Junior Research Fellowships are available to doctoral candidates at U.S. universities in all fields of study. These grants are specifically designed to enable doctoral candidates to pursue their dissertation research in India. Junior Research Fellows establish formal affiliation with Indian universities and Indian research supervisors. Awards are available for up to 11 months. Senior Research Fellowships Senior Research Fellowships are available to scholars with a PhD or its equivalent. These grants are designed to enable scholars who specialize in South Asia to pursue further research in India and to establish formal affiliation with an Indian institution. Short-term awards are available for up to four months. Long-term awards are available for six to nine months. A limited number of humanists will be granted fellowships paid in dollars funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Senior Scholarly/Professional Development Fellowships Senior Scholarly/Professional Development Fellowships are available both to established scholars who have not previously specialized in Indian studies and to established professionals who have not previously worked or studied in India. Senior Scholarly/Professional Development Fellows are formally affiliated with an Indian institution. Awards may be granted for periods of six to nine months. Senior Performing and Creative Arts Fellowships Senior Performing and Creative Arts Fellowships are available to accomplished practitioners of the performing arts of India and creative artists who demonstrate that study in India would enhance their skills, develop their capabilities to teach or perform in the U.S., enhance American involvement with India's artistic traditions or strengthen their links with peers in India. Awards will normally be for periods of up to four months, although proposals for periods of up to nine months can be considered.

Submit an application if you are a successful top-rank junior researcher from abroad, only completed your doctorate with distinction in the last six years, and have published work in prestigious international journals or publishing houses. The Sofja Kovalevskaja Award allows you to spend five years building up a working group and working on a high-profile, innovative research project of your own choice at a research institution of your own choice in Germany.

The Special Collections Research Center of William & Mary Libraries is pleased to announce that it will award up to four travel grants in the maximum amount of $1,500 each to faculty members, graduate students, and/or independent researchers to support research use of its collections. Writers, creative and performing artists, filmmakers and journalists are welcome to apply. For information on the manuscripts, rare books, and university archives held in the Special Collections Research Center, please visit the Special Collections webpage. Strengths of the collections include, but are not limited to, books on dogs, fore-edge painting books, Virginia family papers and libraries, twentieth-century Southern politics, women's diaries, travel diaries, veterans' letters, notable alumni, and university history. Prospective applicants are encouraged to discuss their research project and the collections that might support it with Special Collections staff before submitting an application.

The Amphion Foundation, Inc., founded in 1987 by Elliott and Helen Carter, was established to encourage the performance of contemporary concert music, particularly by American composers, through support to performing and presenting organizations that have demonstrated sustained artistic excellence, in addition to service organizations. The Foundation's mission is carried out through its grant program.

The U.S. Embassy's Public Affairs Section in Moscow (PAS Moscow) invites proposal submissions for a cooperative agreement to provide technical and logistical support for arts and cultural programming in Russia. The grant recipient will work closely with Public Affairs and Cultural Affairs at Mission Russia to identify and select American artists and performers to bring to Russia for short-term programs. Performances may include, but are not limited to music, dance, theater and film/television acting, and culinary arts. The grant may occasionally include programs for artists in the spheres of photography, comic books and graphic arts, computer art and design, arts management, painting, and other visual and graphic art. Individual athletes or groups of athletes may also be supported through this program to demonstrate their talent. The grantee will be responsible for assisting with support in the form of fee negotiation with the artists, visa assistance, in-country and international transportation arrangements, airport pickup, event promotion, procurement of educational and printed materials, and other technical and logistical support as directed by PAS Moscow. Additional examples of supporting activities include reimbursing artists for program-related expenditures and processing vendor payments for travel expenses, support, or other items.

Founded in 1962, the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music is dedicated to promoting understanding of the life and works of composers Kurt Weill (1900-1950) and Marc Blitzstein (1905-1963) and preserving the legacies of Weill and his wife, actress-singer Lotte Lenya (1898-1981). The foundation awards grants to individuals and nonprofit organizations for performances of musical works by Weill and Blitzstein; for scholarly research pertaining to Weill, Lenya, Marc Blitzstein; and for relevant educational initiatives. To that end, the foundation is accepting applications for projects and performances taking place on or after January 1, 2019, and before July 1, 2020. For complete program guidelines and application instructions, see the Kurt Weill Foundation website.

As part of this mission, the foundation is accepting applications from nonprofit performing ensembles for general operating support or special project support. For the 2019 funding cycle, support will be given to projects that take place between September 2019 and August 2020. (The foundation will only consider projects that fall outside that window under extraordinary circumstances.) In general, grants will range between $1,000 and $7,500, although larger grants may be awarded to larger performing organizations with an extraordinary commitment to contemporary concert music or a particularly significant project. To be eligible, applicants must be a nonprofit amateur choral ensemble or youth choir performing contemporary classical music at an exceptionally high artistic level.

Chamber Music America's Classical Commissioning Program provides grants to United States-based presenters and professional contemporary classical and world music ensembles for the commissioning and performance of new works by American composers. The program supports works scored for two to ten musicians performing one per part and composed in any of the musical styles associated with contemporary classical music. Grants provide a composer's fee of up to $20,000, a $1,000 honorarium to each ensemble member (up to ten) for rehearsing the new piece, and copying costs of up to $1,000.

Rabbit Island Residency programs provide time and space to investigate and challenge creative practices in a wilderness environment. Artists live and work on the island for 2-4 weeks, engaging directly with the landscape, responding to notions of conservation, ecology, and sustainability via their research and cultural practices. The residency reflects on the American continent's four hundred year history of settlement and division of land, and stems from the idea that in a developed society intelligent organization of wild spaces is one of the most civilized things we can pursue. The island itself, an unsettled and undivided space, enables artists to present commentary on these ideas, creating interpretations and solutions to issues of global importance-climate change, loss of natural habitat, the value of pristine watersheds, the environmental implications of entrepreneurship, and so forth. Modern understanding of our natural reality, as well as our cause-and-effect relationship to it, dictates a need for principles worthy of our time. If artists do not create the work that defines this new space, who will? Art is perhaps the purest form of creation, and serves fittingly as a symbol for all human constructions.

Each year, approximately ten ensembles are selected to conduct regional cultural exchange tours of approximately a month in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Central and South America, and the Middle East. As part of the program activities, selected ensembles will perform high-profile public concerts, engage in intensive collaborations with local musicians, lead jam sessions, appear in the media, and offer educational activities such as workshops, music business training for aspiring musicians, and motivational and education programs for underserved youth.