AGENCY: National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)

PROGRAM: American Masterpieces: Chamber Music

OBJECTIVES: The American Masterpieces program is a major initiative to acquaint Americans with the best of their cultural and artistic legacy. Through American Masterpieces, the National Endowment for the Arts will sponsor performances, exhibitions, tours, and educational programs across all art forms that will reach large and small communities in all 50 states. This component of American Masterpieces will celebrate the extraordinary and rich evolution of chamber music in the United States. Through performances and related educational activities, American chamber music of the highest quality will be experienced by Americans in communities across the nation. Grants are available for chamber music performances in conjunction with educational activities that will highlight specific repertoire by American composers and enable ensembles to engage with communities in a variety of settings. The NEA is particularly interested in projects that have at least one performance and two educational activities.

The NEA plans to support a range of projects that reflect the breadth of chamber music. For the purposes of this initiative, chamber music generally is defined as one player to a part, performed without a conductor, with between two and ten players; duos must perform as an ensemble of equal partners. Chamber music encompasses music for traditional ensembles such as string quartets and trios, as well as compositions for mixed ensembles, traditional and indigenous instruments, and jazz. Projects may include recordings and broadcasts. Commissions and premiere performances are not eligible.

Projects must be accompanied by related educational, interpretive, or contextual components. These may include discussions, master classes, seminars, exhibitions, program material, or cooperative learning projects with educational or community institutions. Curriculum-based educational components for children and youth must ensure the application of national or state arts education standards.

ELIGIBILITY RESTRICTIONS: Organizations are limited to one American Masterpieces: Chamber Music application per year. Projects may be initiated by eligible organizations of all sizes, genres, and aesthetics such as ensembles, presenters, festivals, and colleges and universities.

DEADLINES:
BU Internal Deadline: August 28, 2009
Agency Deadline: October 9, 2009, 11:59 p.m., Eastern Time

FUNDING INFORMATION: Grants will generally range from $5,000 to $75,000 and require a nonfederal match of at least 1 to 1.

AGENCY CONTACT:
Court Burns
National Endowment for the Arts
1100 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20506
Phone: 202-682-5590  
Email: burnsc@arts.gov
Web: http://www.nea.gov/grants/apply/AMChamber.html

INTERNAL REVIEW PROCESS: To screen potential proposals for this competition and coordinate institutional cost-sharing commitments, an internal deadline has been established. Faculty members interested in submitting an application should provide the following proposal information to their Associate Dean by Friday, August 28, 2009 for internal review purposes:

(1) a draft project description of no more than three pages;
(2) a draft budget representing both the request to NEA and the cost-sharing required to carry out the program, as well as an indication of your plans to meet the cost-sharing requirement; and
(3) a curriculum vitae for the project director.

Following the Dean’s assessment of the internal application, it will be forwarded to Associate Provost Joan Kirkendall for review and then to the Office of the VP for Research for final selection.  PIs will be informed if their proposal is selected for submission and advised of institutional cost-sharing commitments in time to complete and process their proposal for final review.

REMARKS: Applications must be submitted electronically using the Grants.gov system. Instructions and forms are available on the Grants.Gov website (http://www.grants.gov). Additional information about Grants.gov for BU Investigators can be obtained on the OSP website at: http://www.bu.edu/osp/electronic/index.html. Please contact the OSP Assistant Director assigned to your school or department as soon as possible to coordinate submission through the Grants.gov system.