CMA Awards Nearly $500,000 in Support of New Artistic Projects and the Presentation of Jazz

New York, NY — Chamber Music America (CMA), the national network for ensemble music professionals, has announced the distribution of $479,750 through two of its grant programs to support the work of ensembles and presenters across the contemporary and traditional jazz, classical, and folkloric genres.

The 2025 grantees were selected after a peer-review process by an independent panel of chamber music professionals in December 2024. Individual awards, from $8,500 to $20,000, will be used to support projects in communities across the US, including 14 states and Washington D.C., with artists located across the US and in Puerto Rico.

The two grant programs and respective awardees—Artistic Projects, supported by the Howard Gilman Foundation, and Presenters Consortium for Jazz supported by The Doris Duke Foundation—are outlined below.

Presenter Consortium for Jazz 

Supported by the Doris Duke Foundation

Five grants totaling $179,750 have been awarded to 18 presenters that work together in groups of three to engage a jazz ensemble for concerts in their respective communities. The 2025 Presenter Consortium for Jazz grantees are:

Piano Awards (IN); Hot Summer Jazz Festival (MN); and School of Music at Indiana State University (IN) presenting The Sullivan Fortner Trio

Jazz House Kids (NJ); DC Jazz Festival (DC); and August Wilson African American Cultural Center (PA) presenting Jazzmeia Horn Quartet

Kayenta Arts (UT); UtahPresents (UT); and Vilar Performing Arts Center (CO) presenting Alfredo Rodriguez & Pedrito Martinez

Stanford Live (CA); Edmonds Center for the Arts (WA); and Healdsburg Jazz Festival, Inc. (CA) presenting Jahari Stampley Family Trio

Blues to Green (MA); FirstWorks (RI); and Simsbury Performing Arts Center (CT) presenting William Cepeda and Elio Villafranca Sextet: Merging Roots

Art Lit Lab (WI); New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation Inc. (LA); and Summer of the Arts, Inc. (IA) presenting The Original Pinettes Brass  

Artistic Projects 

Supported by the Howard Gilman Foundation 

Grants totaling $300,000 have been awarded to 17 New York City-based projects, comprising performances, recordings, new compositions, and residencies, among other artist-generated ideas. The projects funded through this program represent the artistic visions, concepts, and priorities of the applicants, regardless of musical genre or style. Each project will have an engagement or performance that connects the artists’ work to NYC audiences in the contemporary, classical, jazz, and global music scenes.

The 2025 Artistic Projects grantees are:

American Brass Quintet
Project: Commissioned quintet from composer Justin Dello Joio

Inwood Art Works
Project: Performance; Inwood Art Works will present its second annual Magic of Mozart concert as part of the Community Concert series.

Tomoko Omura Roots Quintet
Project: Recording new music for a new album, to be premiered in 2025

The Vex Collection
Project: Creating a new recording, featuring a live performance in New York City.

Majid Khaliq and No Looking Back
Project: Recording a new project: rooted in jazz, classical, electronic, and rock music, the recording will explore a young Martin Luther King Jr.’s spiritual awakening.

Da Capo Chamber Players
Project: Residency; supporting its 2025 performances that will spotlight core members and the synergy of sound developed through their long collaboration with each other and with guest artists.

Sylvan Winds, Inc.
Project: Recording focusing on works for wind quintet by four women composers of different backgrounds, compositional style, and varied instrumentation.

TAK ensemble
Project: Commissioning and workshop of two new concert-length works by composer Victoria Cheah, to premiere at TAK ensemble’s multi-genre, experimental festival SWOONFEST

The Cramer Quartet
Project: Commission by Juri Seo—the fourth installment for “Haydn: Dialogues,” the quartet’s flagship project, which reimagines Haydn’s 68 string quartets by pairing them with new compositions by American non-(cis)male, LGBTQ+, and BIPOC composers.

Tessa Souter
Project: Performances for the CD-release of ESP: The Erik Satie Project in spring 2025.

Max Bessessen & Feet Don’t Change
Project: Three performances and a recording of evening-length suite, written for jazz quartet and string quartet.

Alicia Waller & The Excursion
Project: The production, performance, and documentation of two concerts for the release of the ensemble’s forthcoming album.  Performances will feature the album’s eight original songs, each crafted to explore varying iterations of life for Black women in the US.

The Sax Project
Project: Commission by Migiwa Miyajima, a Japanese composer based in New York City and co-leader of the group, to create a ten-movement suite titled “WA,” which means “harmony” or “being together” in Japanese. This suite will blend the vocabularies of classical and jazz saxophone, embodying the concept of “WA.”

Cocomama
Project: Performance of their new album, Evolución (made possible by the 2023 CMA Performance Plus program) for audiences in the Bronx, Upper Manhattan, and Brooklyn.

Ensemble132
Project: Recording the ensemble’s debut album and sharing it with audiences throughout New York City. Ensemble132 explores the intersections in classical chamber music with innovative, genre-bending programming and artist-crafted arrangements.

The New Consort
Project: Commission by composer Doug Balliett for a collaborative performance and project with Manhattan-based baroque ensemble Theotokos in late September 2025.

Soundbox Camerata
Project: Performance of a new concert premiering Marc Migó Cortes’ new Carnival of the Animals that features notable musicians and explores diverse narratives for audiences in New York.

Chamber Music America, the national network of ensemble music professionals, was founded in 1977 to develop, strengthen, and support the chamber music community. With a membership including musicians, ensembles, presenters, artists’ managers, educators, music businesses, and advocates of ensemble music, CMA welcomes members representing a wide range of musical styles and traditions. In addition to its funding programs, CMA provides its members with consulting services, access to instrument and other insurances, conferences, seminars, and its quarterly publication, Chamber Music magazine.

The mission of The Doris Duke Foundation is to improve the quality of people’s lives through grants supporting the performing arts, environmental conservation, medical research, and child well-being, and through preservation of the cultural and environmental legacy of Doris Duke’s properties.

Howard Gilman believed in the power of the arts to transform lives. The Howard Gilman Foundation honors his legacy by supporting the most robust, innovative, and promising performing arts organizations in New York City.