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MAP Fund for Contemporary Performances

Funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and administered by Creative Capital, the MAP Fund supports artists, ensembles, producers, and presenters whose work in the disciplines of contemporary performance embodies a spirit of exploration and deep inquiry. MAP is particularly interested in supporting work that examines notions of cultural difference or "the other," be that in class, gender, generation, race, religion, sexual orientation, or other aspects of diversity.

Amount: $10,000 - $45,000

Due: October 17, 2012

For more information, 
http://mapfund.org/

Princess Grace Foundation

The Princess Grace Foundation-USA has announced the availability of applications for the 2012 Princess Grace Awards in theater, playwriting, dance performance, choreography, and film.

Founded in 1982, the foundation identifies and assists emerging artists in theater, dance, and film, and has awarded more than $8.5 million to nearly six hundred individuals in the United States.

Theater Awards are offered in the form of scholarships, apprenticeships, and fellowships. Grants are awarded based on the quality of the emerging artist's past work, his/her potential for future excellence, and the impact the collaboration between the nominating organization and the artist will have on the individual's artistic growth. The Playwriting Award includes a residency at New Dramatists, Inc. and opportunity for the winning play to be licensed and published by Samuel French, Inc. (Deadline: March 21, 2012.)

Dance Performance Awards are offered in the form of scholarships and fellowships. Awards are based on the applicant's artistic merit, significance of the award to current artistic development, and the potential for future excellence and impact on the field. Choreography Awards offer emerging choreographers the opportunity to create a new work with organizations with which they have little experience. (Deadline: April 30, 2012.)

Film Scholarships, awarded to undergraduate and graduate students, are by invitation-only. Approved university, college, and school film programs are invited to submit applicants via their department chairs or deans. Film scholarships provide funding toward the filmmaker's thesis project. (A complete list of accepted schools is available at the foundation's Web site.) (Deadline: June 1, 2012.)

For more information, click here.

NEA "Our Town" Grants

Through Our Town, subject to the availability of funding, the National Endowment for the Arts will provide a limited number of grants, ranging from $25,000 to $150,000, for creative placemaking projects that contribute toward the livability of communities and help transform them into lively, beautiful, and sustainable places with the arts at their core. Our Town will invest in creative and innovative projects in which communities, together with their arts and design organizations and artists, seek to:

• Improve their quality of life.
• Encourage creative activity.
• Create community identity and a sense of place.
• Revitalize local economies.

Date due: March 1, 2012

Amount: $25,000 - $150,000

For more information, click here.

Grants in Emerging Fields, Literature, and Performing Arts

Creative Capital, a national nonprofit organization that provides integrated financial and advisory support to artists pursuing adventurous projects, has announced guidelines and the application schedule for its 2012 grant cycle.

This year's program is open to artists working in emerging fields, literature, and performing arts. Emerging fields may include architecture/design, digital arts, gaming, interdisciplinary, new genres, and sound art. Literature may include fiction, genre-defying literary work, nonfiction, and poetry. Performing arts is focused on the live performing arts and may include dance, dance-theater, experimental music performance, interdisciplinary, multimedia performance, music-theater, non-traditional opera, performance art, puppetry, spoken word and theater.

Creative Capital is interested in supporting artists who demonstrate bold, inventive, and singular ideas in project form and content; are at a catalytic moment in their creative practice and career approach; are deeply engaged with and rigorously committed to their art form; have potential for significant artistic and cultural impact; and understand the professional landscape of their field. To be eligible to apply, an artist must be a U.S. citizen or permanent legal resident, at least 25 years old, a working artist with at least five years of professional experience, and not a full-time student.

Amount: $10,000

Date due: March 1, 2012

For more information, click here.

America's Music (NEH)

America’s Music: A Film History of Our Popular Music from Blues to Bluegrass to Broadway is a six-week public program featuring documentary film screenings and scholar-led discussions of twentieth-century American popular music. The six sessions focus on these uniquely American musical genres: blues and gospel, Broadway, jazz, bluegrass and country, rock n’ roll, and mambo and hip hop. The project will provide DVDs of compelling documentary films, discussion guidelines, original essays by eminent scholars, extensive resource guides, and Web support. The project will offer participating organizations training in how to organize, promote, and run the series successfully. All libraries and nonprofit organizations selected to implement the public program will receive grants of $2,500 for project expenses. Fifty organizations (libraries and other eligible nonprofits) will be selected to receive a grant to present this series of community programs on the history of American popular music. The grantee institutions are expected to offer the programs between January 1, 2013, and December 31, 2013.

Amount: $2,500

Date due: March 14, 2012

For more information, click here.

MetLife Creative Connections

MetLife Creative Connections provides support for American composers to participate in public activities related to specific performances of their original music. By supporting the composer’s interaction with audiences, performers, arts organizations, and local communities, Metlife Creative Connections aims to increase public awareness and enhance the creative artist’s role in society.

Metlife Creative Connections applications are submitted by a Sponsoring Organization requesting support for one or more composers participating in public activities organized, sponsored, and/or presented by the organization.

Amount: $3,500

Date due: January 7, 2012

For more information, click here.

Chamber Music America Announces Fall Funding Opportunities (Jazz, Classical)

Chamber Music America announces awards for classical and jazz ensembles.

The CMA/ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming recognize ensembles and presenters for their commitment to public programming of recent classical/contemporary and/or jazz music. Awards will be presented at the CMA National Conference in New York City, January 12-15, 2012. Each recipient will receive a $500 award and a plaque. Applicants must be based in the United States or its territories, be either a not-for-profit presenter or an ensemble of two to ten musicians, have been in existence for at least two years, and be a current CMA organization-level member. (Deadline: October 7, 2011.)

The CMA Presenting Jazz program supports concert presenters in engaging U.S.-based jazz ensembles in concert settings. To be eligible, a presenter must be a U.S.-based nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that has presented at least ten public music concerts by professional, touring music ensembles over the past two years and be a CMA organization-level member. The jazz ensemble named in the application must be based in the U.S. or its territories, consist of two to ten members, have performed together as a professional touring jazz ensemble for a minimum of two years, and include improvisation as an integral part of its composition and performance. Core support will range from $5,000 to $10,000. Additional incentives of $1,000 are available for a presenter engaging a CMA New Works/New Jazz Works grantee, and if the CMA New Works/New Jazz Works grantee ensemble performs its CMA commission in its entirety. (Deadline: October 14, 2011.)

The Residency Partnership Program supports ensembles and presenters in reaching audiences for classical/contemporary, jazz, and world chamber music through residency projects. Funding is specifically aimed at activities that take place in community settings. U.S.-based ensembles and not-for-profit presenters may submit an application for a residency. The organizing and ensemble partners must be CMA organization-level members. Typical residency activities include but are not limited to workshops, ensemble coachings, master classes, clinics, lecture-demonstrations, and open rehearsals. Grants provide up to a maximum of $6,000 for a short-term residency and $12,000 for an extended residency. (Deadline: November 18, 2011.)

For more information, click here.

Scholarly Editions and Translations

Scholarly Editions and Translations grants support the preparation of editions and translations of pre-existing texts and documents that are currently inaccessible or available in inadequate editions. These grants support full-time or part-time activities for periods of a minimum of one year up to a maximum of three years. Projects must be undertaken by a team of at least one editor or translator and one other staff member. Grants typically support editions and translations of significant literary, philosophical, and historical materials, but other types of work, such as musical notation, are also eligible.

Amount: $300,000

Date due: December 8, 2011

For more information, click here.

ASCAP Foundation Songwriters & Composers Education grant

The ASCAP Foundation is a publicly supported charitable organization dedicated to supporting American music creators and encouraging their development through music education and talent development programs.

The foundation is accepting Letters of Intent for new 2012 grant funding from organizations engaged in music education and talent development programs for aspiring songwriters and composers.

The foundation does not consider requests for general operating or administrative support or annual giving campaigns, capital purposes, endowments, deficit operations, recordings, marketing efforts, or performance and production funding. The foundation does not purchase advertisements, sponsor events, or donate equipment.

The foundation's average grant is between $1,500 and $3,000 and is made on an annual one-time basis.

Grant applications are by invitation only. Applicants must first submit a LOI and then be invited by the ASCAP Foundation to complete and submit a full grant application.

For examples of the types of projects funded, click here.

For the full Letter of Intent and Grant application instructions, click here.

Due date: LOI, August 1, 2011.

NEH Challenge Grants

NEH challenge grants are capacity-building grants, intended to help institutions and organizations secure long-term improvements in and support for their humanities programs and resources. Grants may be used to establish or enhance endowments or spend-down funds (that is, funds that are invested, with both the income and the principal being expended over a defined period of years) that generate expendable earnings to support ongoing program activities. Grantees may also use funds for one-time capital expenditures (such as construction and renovation, purchase of equipment, and acquisitions) that bring long-term benefits to the institution and to the humanities more broadly.

Amount: Varies

Date due: May 4, 2011

For more information, click here.

French-American Jazz Exchange

A partnership of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, the French-American Cultural Exchange, and the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, the French-American Jazz Exchange is designed to foster the creative and professional development of jazz artists from France and the United States. FAJE supports projects jointly conceived by French and American professional jazz artists that encourage artistic exploration, foster intercultural dialogue, and contribute to the dynamism of the art form. The program will support activities that may result in the creation of new work, establishment of new creative and professional partnerships, and development of new audiences for the participating artists. Projects may include jazz artists in France and the United States working together or investigating forms other than jazz with artists who work in different music genres.

To be eligible, a project must consist of a lead partner from one country working with a collaborating partner from the other country. Lead and collaborating partners may be either individual artists or ensembles (not to exceed five musicians). Ensembles may represent an established group or musicians brought together specifically for the proposed project. Projects can include artists working together for the first time or those who have a prior working relationship.

Amount: $25,000

Date due: May 31, 2011

For more information, click here.

Etant donnés: The French-American Fund for the Performing Arts Offers Funding for French and American Theater Programs

Etant donnés offers financial support in the form of grants to American nonprofit institutions producing or presenting theater projects (tours, residencies, translations) either of contemporary French playwrights or with French theater professionals (directors, actors, stage-designers, etc.). New productions of classical repertory are only eligible if they involve collaboration with a French director/playwright/other professionals.

Amount: The amount of a grant request cannot exceed 50 percent of the total budget for the project and/or $25,000.

Date due: February 1, 2011

For more information, click here.

Ford Family Foundation Visual Arts Program Funds Opportunity Grants for Oregon Artists

The Oregon Arts Commission has announced an agreement with the Ford Family Foundation Visual Arts Program to manage new Opportunity Grants to be reviewed in conjunction with the commission's Career Opportunity Grants.

The Ford Family Foundation is offering additional resources to Oregon visual artists who face unanticipated circumstances and for whom the grants could help significantly advance the creation, production, or exhibition of their work. The new grants are a component of the foundation's Visual Arts Program, which seeks to accelerate an enhanced quality of artistic endeavor and bodies of work by mid-career Oregon visual artists, and to improve Oregon's visual arts ecology.

Amount: $7,500

Date due: February 14, 2011; May 16, 2011

For more information, click here.

Bellagio Center Residency Program

Through conferences and residencies, the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center in northern Italy brings together people of diverse expertise and backgrounds in a thought-provoking, collegial environment that helps to promote impact on a wide range of world issues.

The center's residency program allows for one month of disciplined work, uninterrupted by the professional and personal demands of daily life, in a diverse and stimulating community of fellow residents. Residents include an international cohort of scholars, scientists, journalists, writers, artists, non-governmental organization practitioners, and policy makers. In addition to time for writing, creativity, and reflection during the day, building new connections and collegial interaction with other residents is an integral dimension of the Bellagio experience. Meals and informal presentations of residents' work afford an opportunity for dynamic discussion and engagement with each other.

Residencies typically last four weeks, and spouses/life partners may accompany residents. Team residencies for small groups of two to four are also available; practitioners (i.e., not artists or scholars based at universities) may opt for two two-week residency periods.

DUE DATE: December 1, 2010

For more information, click here.

PGE Foundation Grants supporting Arts & Culture

The PGE Foundation is committed to improving the quality of life in Oregon by awarding grants in the areas of education, healthy families, and arts and culture. In the education category, the Foundation supports a wide range of programs, from preschool through college. In the healthy families category, the focus is on organizations that work to promote services in all areas of health, including hunger, mental health, homelessness, domestic violence, health care, etc. In the arts and culture category, the Foundation strives to educate all ages through the support of arts curriculum development as well as a variety of cultural performances.

Amount: $2,500 - $10,000

Date due: The remaining 2010 deadlines for letters of inquiry are July 13 and November 16.

For more information, click here.

MetLife "Meet the Composer" Competition

Administered by Meet the Composer, the MetLife Creative Connections program provides support for American composers to participate in public activities related to specific performances of their original music. By supporting the composer's interaction with audiences, performers, arts organizations, and local communities, the program aims to increase public awareness and enhance the creative artist's role in society.

The program is open to U.S. composers and U.S-based sponsoring organizations. Applications are submitted by the sponsoring organization (a presenter, ensemble, dance company, etc.) requesting support for one or more composers (up to six). Grants are awarded to support the composer's participation fee for outreach activities.

There are no limits or restrictions on the style or genre of music to be performed or presented.

Amount: $250 - $5000

Date due: June 1, 2010

For more information, click here.

Fox Foundation Resident Actor Fellowships

The William & Eva Fox Foundation and Theatre Communications Group established the Fox Foundation Resident Actor Fellowships as a two-year pilot program to support both emerging and established actors.

The Fox Fellowships program seeks to further an actor's artistic and professional development, to deepen and enrich his/her relationship with a not-for-profit theater, to ensure his/her continued professional commitment to live theater, and to encourage actors to work outside their comfort zone.

The fellowships are awarded to actors in two categories — Extraordinary Potential, for early to mid-career actors who have completed their training within the last fifteen years; and Distinguished Achievement, for actors who have demonstrated considerable experience in professional theater, with a substantial body of work.

The program will bestow a total of five fellowships per year in both categories. Recipients in the Extraordinary Potential category will receive $15,000, with an additional $10,000 available to relieve student loan debt. Recipients in the Distinguished Achievement category will receive $25,000. The host theater will receive $7,500 to be applied to costs incurred in the actor's residency activities.

Date due: June 11, 2010

For more information, click here.

Film Festival Grants

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences is accepting applications for its Film Festival Grants program for nonprofit film festivals in the United States that will take place during the 2011 calendar year. Film festivals are encouraged to submit proposals that make festival events more accessible to the general public, provide greater access to minority and less visible filmmakers, and help strengthen the connection between the filmmaker and the public.

Only festivals based in the United States that have held at least five festivals as of December 31, 2009, are eligible to apply this year. Individual festivals are not allowed to receive grants in successive years. Festivals that do not screen films in a theatrical setting are not eligible to apply.

Eligible film festivals may apply for grants at four funding levels ranging from $2,500 to $30,000, depending on the cash budget of the festival. Grant requests must target one or more concrete elements within the festival. No grants will be awarded for general support.

Date due: July 1, 2010

For more information, click here.

Jazz NEXT

The Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation is accepting applications for the second round of its Jazz.NEXT grant program.

Developed in partnership with the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Jazz.NEXT is designed to test substantive and innovative projects that utilize technology to improve communications with existing audiences and engage new constituents, distribute the work of jazz artists to a broader public, and connect the disparate members of the jazz field into a more cohesive and effective community better equipped to face current and future challenges.

Round II of the program will provide support for the implementation of innovative, fully developed plans that incorporate technology to address audience development, communications, distribution, marketing, and network building. Grants may support projects that are new to the grantees or clearly represent taking their current technology efforts to the next level of development in order to advance their proposed concepts rather than simply maintaining or modifying them.

To be eligible, the applicant must be a jazz artist who is a citizen or permanent resident of the United States or a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization (or an organization with an eligible fiscal sponsor) with a history of programming jazz or providing services to jazz artists or jazz organizations. Applicants must have demonstrated some prior experience working with technology applications in addressing audience development, communications, creation and presentation, marketing and promotion, networking, or other capacity-building endeavors.

Date due: June 1, 2010

Amount: $10,000 - $75,000

For more information, click here.