2025 Grantees
The Musical Fund Society granted $65,500 to 13 organizations for projects in the 2024–25 season.
| Ars Nova Workshop | Ars Nova will produce and record performances by Ghost Horizon, an ensemble that includes legendary jazz saxophonist Marshall Allen. These recordings serve as a testament to Marshall Allen’s body of work as he approaches his 100th birthday, and will celebrate Ars Nova’s 25th anniversary. | $3,000 |
| Astral Artists | Seven Astral artists will collaborate with seven composers in new commissions for their instruments. The resulting works will receive their world premieres on the artists’ capstone solo recitals in Philadelphia. | $6,000 |
| Bowerbird | Bowerbird celebrates the 2026 centenary of David Tudor with his “Forest Speech,” a seminal piece incorporating found objects and sculpture which are outfitted and positioned to become “instrumental loudspeakers” activated by the performers. | $6,000 |
| Curtis Institute of Music | Curtis presents Infernal Angel, a new commission by Curtis faculty member Amy Beth Kirsten. Scored for female voice, electronics, actor, and a disembodied medieval vocal trio, the work examines the fateful relationship between Joan of Arc and Gilles de Rais, who was one of her generals and who may have inspired the story of Bluebeard. | $3,000 |
| Dolce Suono Ensemble | Dolce Suono Ensemble highlights music by Asian-American composers, featuring new chamber works by composers Fang Man and Zhou Tian, performed in concerts and workshops in partnership with community organizations in Philadelphia’s Chinatown and at the Penn Museum. | $6000 |
| Lyric Fest | Lyric Fest is recording "COTTON," a song cycle by Damian Geter, commissioned in honor of Lyric Fest’s 20th Anniversary. Scored for mezzo soprano, baritone, and piano, it includes eight newly commissioned poems, all based on the cotton photography of John Dowell. | $6000 |
| Mann Center for the Performing Arts | For three weeks, 6th-12th grade students in the Philadelphia area will be provided with high quality orchestra training, learning and performing alongside members of the Philadelphia Orchestra, with additional supports and life-skill development through partnerships with Project 440 and the Philadelphia Orchestra. | $3000 |
| Network for New Music | Network’s 40th anniversary project presents 40 composers in a variety of micro-commissions, ranging from short stylized dances, works inspired by song, an exquisite corpse project, and pieces celebrating noted composer Richard Wernick’s 90th birthday. | $6000 |
| Nueva Esperanza | Esperanza Arts Center collaborates with the American Composers Orchestra in a celebration of AfroLatino music, culture and community. Edmar Castañeda, the renowned Colombian harpist and composer, will host and perform, along with electrifying guest ensembles Harlem Samba and North Philly’s Siempre Salsa All Stars. | $6,000 |
| Orchestra 2001 | Orchestra 2001 presents a one-hour, cabaret-oratorio by composer Andrea Clearfield featuring drag artist Cookie Diorio as librettist and singer, for “LONG LIVE THE QUEEN: a Her-story of Drag.” Cookie and Orchestra 2001 will be joined by the Philadelphia Gay Men’s Chorus, ANNA Crusis Feminist Choir, and Voices of Pride. | $6,000 |
| Piffaro | Piffaro presents a day-long Recorder Fest for musicians of every ability and stage of life to perform for and to play with one another, with performances by community ensembles and individuals, coaching for high school players by Piffaro musicians, and a community play-in open to all. | $3,000 |
| PRISM Saxophone Quartet | PRISM Quartet commissions and collaborates with three leading guitarist-composers: Yasmin Williams, Rez Abbasi, and Steven Mackey. Premiering in Philadelphia in June 2025, each composer will perform as a soloist with PRISM on his/her piece. | $6,000 |
| Tempesta Di Mare | Faustina Bordoni and Santina Tasca came from different ends of the spectrum in terms of birth, wealth and beauty; each found professional recognition and success in a male-dominated society. Tempesta highlights the musical world of these two renowned Venetian divas of the Baroque era in works for 2 mezzos and the Tempesta ensemble. | $5,500 |