2019 Grantees
The Musical Fund Society granted $60,000 to 14 organizations for projects in the 2018–19 season.
| Astral Artists | Support for a free outdoor block party in Philadelphia’s Midtown Village on September 15, 2018. Astral artists Xavier Foley (double bass), Christine Lamprea (cello), and Annie Wu (flute) are joined by WRTI's Debra Lew Harder in crafting a new classical music experience for Philadelphians. | $4,500 |
| Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia | Support for a composer residency during the 2018–19 “Migrations” season. The residency spotlights connections and differences between western classical music and musical traditions from around the world through world-premiere performances, community workshops, and other projects. | $4,000 |
| The Crossing | Support for the annual Month of Moderns festival in June 2018. The Crossing will premiere a new setting by Benjamin C.S. Boyle of Hart Crane’s 20th century poetic masterpiece, Voyages, and a full concert-length work for unaccompanied choir by Kile Smith. | $3,900 |
| Curtis Institute of Music | Support for a composer residency for the 2018–19 school year with esteemed composer Augusta Read Thomas. The composer in residence program, an essential component of Curtis’s core curriculum, provides students the opportunity to learn new techniques. | $4,600 |
| Dolce Suono Ensemble | Support for “The Lost Generations: American Chamber Music,” a project during the 2018–19 season illuminating an important but largely neglected body of 20th-and 21st-century chamber music by American composers, with a special focus on composers with ties to Philadelphia. | $4,500 |
| Live Connections | Support for the second year of “A Song Everyone Can Sing,” a commissioning and community-building project. Philadelphia composer Jay Fluellen will write an expansive choral work for British vocal ensemble VOCES8 to perform with choirs from public schools and community organizations. | $3,700 |
| Lyric Fest | Support for a commission and performance project in April 2019 celebrating the bicentennial of Walt Whitman’s birth and his lasting contribution to American letters and song. Eleven new works will be premiered alongside extant settings of Whitman in two different concerts, with commentary, poetry readings, and pre-concert talks with the composers. | $4,000 |
| Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia | Support for the commissioning of a new work by Philadelphia-based composer, conductor, and educator Dr. Rollo Dilworth, to be performed during the 2018–19 season. | $4,000 |
| Network for New Music | Support of a project exploring creative offshoots of the Post Minimalism tradition, including performances of works by Nico Muhly, Morton Feldman, Terry Riley, and Gerald Levinson; the world premiere of a work commissioned from Evan Ziporyn; and participation by members of the Gamelan Semara Santi. | $4,800 |
| Orchestra 2001 | Support for the first year of “Composer at Work,” a series of mini-residencies featured in the large window of the ensemble’s home base at the Cherry Street Pier artists hub. A rotating roster of Philadelphia-area composers will compose “on-site,” and two small commissions are included in the project. | $3,600 |
| Piffaro | Support for “A French Noël.” a semi-staged holiday pageant in the style of the 16th century. The program will interweave art music and rustic arrangements of dances with text, visuals, and drama into an experience that will move, educate, and entertain audiences. This project is the inaugural recipient of the Musical Fund Society’s Robert Capanna Memorial Award, created in 2018. | $4,800 |
| PRISM Quartet | Support for the recording of Prized Possessions, a 2014 saxophone quartet by Philadelphia composer Viet Cuong. The work will be included on PRISM’s forthcoming recording “Surfaces and Essences,” a collection of first saxophone quartets by emerging composers to be released on PRISM’s label, XAS Records. | $4,500 |
| Tempesta di Mare | Support for “Broken Consort,” a program of music for mixed ensemble from the Elizabethan and Stuart eras by Morley, Rosseter, Lawes, and Locke. The Tempesta di Mare Chamber Players will be joined by soprano Julianne Baird and guest instrumentalists Christopher Morrongiello, lute, and Mark Cudek, cittern for performances on February 1 and 2, 2019. | $4,500 |
| Temple University Music Preparatory Division | Support for a new string orchestra commission and free “Mosaic Concert” in celebration of Temple Music Prep’s 50th Anniversary on March 31, 2019. | $4,600 |