Congratulations to our 2023 Performance Grant Recipients!

Professional Ensembles:
Boston Landmarks Orchestra
Worthington Chamber Orchestra (Ohio)

Community Ensembles:
Horizon Ensemble (Boston, MA)
Seattle Philharmonic

Youth Ensemble:
Denver Young Artists Orchestra

You can read more about them here.

2024 Grant Timeline (tentative)

September 1, 2024: Applications open

November 3, 2024: Final applications due

January 2025: Decisions announced via email

The 2024 grant awards will encompass the performance years: 2025-26, 2026-27, and 2027-28.  The first installment of grant funding will be released in the spring of 2025 to support programming for the 2025-26 season.

Revised Grant Program

Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy has been proud to provide Performance Grants in the U.S. since 2012, helping hundreds of community, professional, and youth orchestras across the country perform works by historic and contemporary women composers.  The impact of these grants has been heard from coast to coast, by small and large ensembles, in rural and urban communities, in live, broadcast and streamed performances.  

Our original intent with this grant program was to encourage more performances of works by women composers by large ensembles.  In revising it, we decided that instead of impacting single concerts, the updated program should allow us to build relationships with ensembles to help identify and facilitate opportunities for broader representation and inclusion throughout multiple concerts and concert seasons.  

As of 2022, WPA Performance Grants were revised to impact the long-term programming decisions in American orchestral concert programming to more accurately resemble the actual diversity found within the historical and contemporary makeup of western art music.  

These newly-revised WPA Grants are awarded annually to a maximum of five ensembles, each of whom commit to a three-year partnership with WPA to develop an inclusive programming model that will carry throughout the commitment of the grant period and beyond. Organizations must be eager to be on the leading edge of change as the classical music community begins to reckon with the systemic inequity and racism that sits at the core of traditional programming.  

Each U.S. applicant ensemble for the program must meet the following criteria: 

  • Community, Professional, or Youth orchestras in the United States who seek to expand their repertoire, attract wider audiences, include engaging educational programming, and be a positive model of change in the classical music world.
  • Ensembles who have demonstrated an established commitment to diversity, inclusion, and representation of music composed by women and other marginalized groups (specifically racial and ethnic minorities) and desire to expand their impact are especially encouraged to apply.  
  • Each ensemble must demonstrate artistic excellence in performance.  Note: A recent audio sample is required for the grant application.
  • The organization’s artistic and administrative staff must be able to commit to a three year partnership to work directly with Women’s Philharmonic Advocacy Grant Administrator and representatives to develop short and long term goals for long term and systemic changes within their individual organizations to address the inequities that have historically been synonymous with classical music programming. 

    The total award of the grant for each winning ensemble will be $5,000, distributed as follows:

    First Year:      $1,000

    Second Year: $1,500

    Third Year:     $2,500

    Failure to meet outlined and agreed upon objectives at any point will mean the forfeiture of future payments.  

    In addition, members of the WPA Board of Directors as well as the Grants Administrator will be available to apply their wide-ranging professional expertise to guide ensembles as they work to expand their concert repertoire, build educational programming opportunities, develop their digital impact, and strive to be on the leading edge of change in the classical music world.  

     The application and instructions are here

    Good luck and thank you for your interest in our mission to more fully represent and perform a wide range of exciting classical repertoire composed by women.