MM&A: Performance Fellowships

This is the place to update information about the fellowships being offered here. The initial announcement is reproduced first, followed by any subsequent (dated) updates.

Thank you for your interest.

The Medieval Music & Arts Foundation is pleased to announce the availability of a very limited number of $3000 (USD) fellowships. If you are reading this space, you probably have a good idea of the sort of project likely to appeal. The intent of a fellowship is to defray costs of a performance tour and/or recording project. We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit, so the tax rules for the stipend will follow that standard. Please let me (Todd) know if you have a proposal. (At this moment, I am especially interested in hearing from Latin America, but that's certainly not an exclusive interest.)

I had actually put off posting this, because I was concerned about getting too many inquiries, and having the time to manage them. However, there seems to be little interest, which surprises me. I guess I need to do a better job advertising, but I also don't want to be suddenly overwhelmed with inquiries, especially about projects that don't interest me. So this is one reason I continue to be apprehensive about advertising this opportunity more widely However, I'd like to let some musicians make use of this money.

Jeff Shurdut (guitar, amp, percussion, pots, pans, tupperware, mics) is renting a kitchen in New York to have a concert with Guillermo Gregorio (reeds, sounds, percussion), Lukas Ligeti (percussion), Frode Gjerstad (reeds), Kevin Shea (percussion, tape), Marcus Cummins (soprano saxophone), Brian Osborne (tapes, electronics, mics, percussion, homemade instruments), and contributions by Mr. Dorgon. Please join them in the intimate setting of KitchenNYC, 306 W 51st St, October 20, 7pm to 10pm. Very limited space; please contact cmclrecords@gmail.com for more info.

The concert poster is here (and will probably be removed from this site, for space reasons, once it's over). Possible followup to come.

With the Kitchen Music concert only a couple of weeks away now, I'm becoming more excited. I've also awarded another fellowship that will be announced here soon.

Maybe this is a good time to mention the more than twenty years I've been involved with music & writing in aesthetics in particular. This month marks the twenty year anniversary for the Early Music FAQ, and I wrote a discussion to mark that anniversary a few days ago. (I've been awarding a Record of the Year in that arena for twenty years. It's come to be a prestigious award.) Since this space is about contemporary music-making, it might also be worthwhile to mention my writings for the San Francisco Symphony on Scelsi, more than a dozen years ago. I'll be part of a panel discussing fusion music for the opening issue of Saamagaana, a new magazine coming out of Bangalore (India) soon, too.

So I continue to do some things, including the more extended discussions appearing intermittently in this part of the site. I'm also happy to be able to facilitate some of the music making of others. I'll be keeping to high standards in awarding this fellowship, and hope to hear from other outstanding candidates.

While it feels premature to me, being as lucid as I can be in this space, to call this fellowship prestigious at this point in time, I feel very good about the current & future prospects of the award.

A photo from the concert has been added to the page for Kitchen Music.

James Falzone has used a performance fellowship to help him create his Early Music Festival: Lachrymae 3-track digital EP, a short release of about 16 minutes, inspired by early music material & techniques.

Says James: "I used the grant to spend time researching new areas of repertoire for the ensemble, then scheduled several Midwest performances to try the music out in front of live audiences. We then spent a day in the studio recording two vocal pieces and one instrumental, and the 3-track EP that emerged. Lachrymae, is a focused example of this ensemble's approach to the material."

James has some interesting remarks about the genesis of his early music project from a volcano & some hate mail, as well as notes on the individual tracks, on his website.

Jeff Arnal will be producing a solo project that involves composed fragments, percussion, samples and field recordings due out later in 2016.

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