Jerod Impichcha̱achaaha' Tate
Oklahoma City, OK
The Talking Leaves, by Jerod Impichcha̱achaaha' Tate, is a new opera sung entirely in the Cherokee language. This award will fund the Cherokee translator and tribal language specialist, Roy Boney.
Laura Elkeslassy
Brooklyn, NY
Paris-born, Brooklyn based artist Laura Elkeslassy is a singer of Judeo-Arab music. Her work draws inspiration from her Sephardi and Moroccan roots exploring North-African folk, Andalusi nubas, Ladino canciones and Maghrebi Jewish liturgy. In 2025, Laura will partner up with master oud player and multi-instrumentalist Rachid Halilhal. Together, they are developing a repertoire of North African folk (Chaabi) and Matrouz. Al Matrouz (from Arabic: المطروز, literally: the embroidered) is a Maghrebi musical style that references to the artistic embroidery of ancestral Arabic and Hebraic poetry, performed to the tune of classical Andalusian melodies.
Jamie Baum
New York, NY
Creating a commentary of our current communal socio-political experience with her recently released Sunnyside Records recording “What Times Are These” featuring The Jamie Baum Septet+, Baum chose 5 women poets including Adrienne Rich, Marge Piercy, Lucille Clifton, Tracy K. Smith and Naomi Shihab Nye, and composed music using their poems for lyrics and spoken word. The tracks are all quite different with the poems and their underlying concept being the unifying thread. This grant will provide funds to document this project with a live video.
Aurora Nealand
New Orleans, LA
The Book of Communal Howling (BOCH) is an hour long composition by Aurora Nealand written for the Instigation Orchestra, an evolving collective of some of the most adventurous cross-genre-performers, composers and improvisors hailing from Chicago & New Orleans. The Book of Communal Howling is rooted in elements of collective improvisation and classical chorales and explores societal sampling.
Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol
Belmont, MA
This project will first premiere a new 20 minute long piece, featuring Blue Heron (Vocal Ensemble) and DÜNYA (classical Turkish music ensemble), by Mehmet Ali Sanlıkol. And then this new piece and an older a cappella piece (also by Sanlıkol) entitled "Devran" will both be recorded as a new album which would be released by Blue Heron. Both pieces combine Renaissance polyphony and several Middle Eastern musical elements into an artistic whole.
Mel Hsu
Philadelphia, PA
[deciphering the knots in the pine beams] is a love note and an elegy, a patient exhale and a quiet reckoning. This soundscape series is a playground for Mel’s exploration of the textural worlds made possible by interwoven strings, winds and voices.
Ludovica Burtone
Brooklyn, NY
"Migration Tales" is a collection of musical stories about female-identifying NYC immigrants. The focal point of this new project revolves around narratives of migration, with the primary objective of raising awareness regarding the challenges and resilience immigrant women exhibit. Its core purpose is to cultivate empathy and serve as a source of inspiration to anyone. Six original tunes and one arrangement for violin, flugelhorn, tenor saxophone, piano, bass, and drums.
Laura Strickling
Racine, WI
AGAIN is the second album of recordings of 40+ new art songs commissioned by soprano Laura Strickling for her landmark 40@40 Project, which endeavors to spotlight composers dedicated to exploring the expressive capabilities of the human voice. The first album, 40@40, with pianist Daniel Schlosberg, received a 2024 Grammy nomination.
Michael R. Dudley Jr. & Arnie Sainz
Hannawa Falls, NY
NewMusic USA funding will help establish the ASMR Jazz Orchestra, a new collaborative cohort of musicians who are interested in remediating musical and social conventions, as well as cultivating a multi-gender, multi-national communal thought space through jazz. The ensemble will be led by Michael R. Dudley Jr., Arnie Sainz, and produced by Eunha So.
Molly Joyce
Charlottesville, VA
I Live in the Woods of My Words is a song-cycle project featuring text by poet Hannah Emerson, music by composer Molly Joyce, performed by soprano Mikaela Bennett, and produced by INTERIM Corporation. The project highlights disabled/nondisabled collaboration, specifically with disabled artists Emerson (non-speaking autistic poet) and Joyce (physically-disabled composer) with nondisabled artist Bennett, and will be produced into a concert and video series.
Lachi
New York, NY
"Out of the Dark" is a Dance/Electronic anthem celebrating the freaks, geeks, and those who don't like it neat! Part of a larger content series "Mad Different", a 6 part high-production unplugged concert series and accompanying fully-plugged studio album by award-winning artist/activist Lachi in collaboration with notable / celebrated counter-culture co-artists intersecting with neurodivergence, disability and queer-disabled identities.
Molly Pease
Los Angeles, CA
LA-based composer and voice artist Molly Pease's “Waterways and Dwellings” explores the culture of the Los Angeles Ballona Creek, from its Indigenous and ecological history to its real estate developments and pollution today. The recording of this work with words by poet Molly Bendall will feature the sounds of Brightwork newmusic, experimental vocal ensemble HEX, and electronic music group People Inside Electronics.
Kurt Rohde
San Francisco, CA
A BowerHaus for the Post-Anthropocene World is a live musical work embedded with sculptural elements, video, lighting, and a scientific narrative, focusing on the realities of habitat fragility, reflecting the urgency of remediation and protection. The work will be made up of two connected musical chapters. CHAPTER 1: Adaptation & Mutation centers the intimate, intricate and ritualistic behavior of the bowerbird. CHAPTER 2: Ferality & Loss delves into exploration of habitat on a global scale.
Oscar Peñas
Brooklyn, NY
Do you ever wonder why some people perceive borders between the five New York boroughs? I have, and I've tried to understand why. My quest led me to write "Remote Hoods" to reflect, through music, the stark reality that some ethnic groups refrain from venturing into other boroughs, labeling them as 'remote neighborhoods.' Five instruments representing the five New York boroughs.
Juraj Kojs
Miami, FL
DJ Apollo contemporary dance project interweaves decades of queer musical anthems, musical reflections on Stravinsky’s score to the Apollo ballet, and spoken text generated from the lived experiences of the performers. The project aims to create a powerful intergenerational reckoning with the wisdom and innocence, strength and fragility, physical and spiritual beauty we contain as individuals and as a community.
Piper Hill
Brooklyn, NY
"Small Dragon" is a musical RPG video game about constructing a retroactive trans boyhood through found objects. It's also friendship and dress-up games. In it, you play as a small dragon who touches objects that transport him to fantastical and spooky mini-universes, unlocking new truths and befriending magical creatures as he goes along.
Juliette M. Jones
Los Angeles, CA
Passing the Crown is an innovative performance-based initiative that merges cinematic orchestration with the vibrant energy of Hip-Hop, centering the contributions of female emcees. Through a curated playlist–our love letter to the Queens of NYC Hip-Hop–we celebrate their impact, from local to global, in an unprecedented fusion of orchestra, DJ, and B-girls.
Queen Esther
New York, NY
With Wayne Tucker & The Bad Mothas as her backing band, songwriter/producer/vocalist/musician Queen Esther's album All Cats Are Beautiful infuses her soulful original country music with a jazz vernacular, deconstructing well-worn societal mores in America by dedicating each song to a victim of police violence. This album is part of a larger interdisciplinary body of work.
Raymond Pinto
Brooklyn, NY
The project centers on the music of Florence Price, aiming to breathe new life into her work by delving into archival documents and transposing fragments of her compositions into a fresh, original score. This new music will be performed live and accompanied by a specially created choreography for two dancers, blending historical reverence with contemporary creativity to celebrate and reinterpret a legacy of black ingenuity.
Joshua Kohl
Seattle, WA
Anima Mundi - Amnesia is an immersive exploration into the profound amnesia that has estranged humanity from the intricate tapestry of the natural world. Rooted in a sense of urgency fueled by the existential climate crisis, this project seeks to explore the complexities of our disconnection and inspire transformative reconnection.
José G. Martínez
Waterville, ME
Voces Olvidadas is a multimedia work for choir, ensemble, video, and electronics about the Colombian internal conflict between the leftist guerrillas and the government during the ‘90s. The project explores tragedy, sadness, politics, and hope through a wide palette of sounds, texts, and video excerpts strongly based on primary sources.
Richard K Thomas
West Lafayette, IN
Inspired by Karel Čapek’s 1920 play R.U.R., Entropics is a 1950’s science fiction that explores a future world 100 years later, a world enhanced by humans created with AI. A music-drama infused with rap, trip hop, post rock, reggae, and industrial elements, Entropics challenges how we are mediated, and resonates in the science, politics, religion, and cultural malaise of our present.
John Popham
Brooklyn, NY
"espacio absoluto" is an album of six new works by two long-time collaborators: cellist John Popham and composer James Díaz. Drawing inspiration from Colombian psychedelia and experimental narrative forms, the project explores the real and artificial through studio-based experimentations, open-form composition, extended string techniques, instrumental improvisation, and unconventional recording and post-production techniques.
John Driscoll & Cecilia Lopez
Littleton, CO
Gestures/Mumurations is a self-running sound installation collaboration by John Driscoll and Cecilia Lopez utilizing robotic rotating loudspeakers and rotating drum speakers creating a rich spatial sound environment. These speakers use sound materials tailored to their movement for an immersive sonic user experience.
Jo Whang
Port Washington, NY
This project embarks on a profound musical journey, illuminating the hidden truths of modern-day slavery. Cellist Jo Whang and composer Frank Horvat synthesize their vision and artistry to raise awareness, challenge perceptions, and amplify the voices of survivors. Together, we aspire to ignite a global conversation and inspire change through the transcendent language of music.
Salar Ansari
Dearborn, MI
Led by Salar Ansari with Ian Fink and Rafael Leafar, the trio's improvisational flair showcases diverse musicality. Utilizing drum machines, samplers, and synths, they craft dynamic soundscapes. Drawing on each member's musical heritage and Detroit's live music ethos, DMVND's sound is both rooted and innovative, emerging from a passion for electronic music and sonic discovery.
Jhoely Garay
New York, NY
“Suite to the End of the World” is an Eco-social work for jazz orchestra that uses the sonic palette of the natural world to raise awareness about conserving and protecting natural resources and offers a woman’s perspective on environmental activism. Jhoely highlights her diverse musical inspirations in this work by combining through-composed and improvised music with strong Latin American music and contemporary jazz influences.
Jeoffrey Arrington
Chicago, IL
These funds will support 'Fool's Croon Live', a fully orchestrated, live performance adaptation of Jeoffrey's first full body of composition work, a 6 track EP entitled Fool's Croon, which was recorded in collaboration with his fellow Chicago vocalist Kiéla Adira. The funds will help compensate the 16+ performers and collaborators required to produce this performance!
Sonya Belaya
Brooklyn, NY
“The Beaks” is a multidisciplinary piece by Sonya Belaya, featuring new media artist Jiangnan Hou, and transdisciplinary fashion designer Weijing Xiao. At the intersection of live music performance, projection mapping, movement, and video, “The Beaks” examines the broken communication immigrants experience when engaging with the dominant vernacular of American English.
Jennifer Williams
Brooklyn, NY
Dis/Inform is a devised opera about the global disinformation crisis told through an intimate, human perspective. Created and performed in New York in collaboration with PROTESTRA, the immersive, devised opera installation illuminates the relationship between depression, extremism and disinformation. Dis/Inform challenges opera's traditional values and pushes the definition of opera and composer.
