Chamber Music America Responds to NEA Funding Cuts with New Grant Program

Together with the Sewell Family Foundation, Chamber Music America, the national network for small ensemble music professionals, announced temporary revisions to its hallmark grant program to provide emergency assistance to organizations and ensembles whose funding had been revoked due to widespread National Endowment for the Arts grant rescissions. Renamed Classical Commissioning: A Responsive Shift, the initiative reimagines CMA’s time-honored Classical Commissioning program to provide critical general operating and programmatic support for the presentation of works by living American composers.

“This is a bold step to sustain creative voices amid the uncertainty surrounding federal arts funding,” says CEO Kevin Kwan Loucks, who notes that since 1983, the Classical Commissioning program has supported more than 285 grantees and supported the creation of new contemporary classical works by American composers including Andy Akiho, Jessie Montgomery, Tyshawn Sorey, Missy Mazzoli, Joan Tower, Steve Reich, and Huang Ro. “While the revised program will keep new music at its core, needs have shifted. The NEA rescissions exacerbate an already unsteady financial situation for many organizations still reeling post pandemic. We are grateful that the Sewell Family Foundation dually recognized this crisis, and CMA is elated to count the Sewells as partners in their offering of such generous relief.”

“We are thrilled to partner with Chamber Music America in offering these grants at this critical time for artists and arts organizations,” says Laura Sewell, President of the Sewell Family Foundation and a renowned cellist and former Board Chair of Chamber Music America. “With CMA’s decades of experience and stellar reputation in the field of grant-making, coupled with its ability to nationally publicize this new initiative, our foundation’s contribution to this effort would help reach a larger number of artists and organizations who have been affected by the recent NEA rescissions. My family had been looking for an appropriate way to honor the recent passing of my father, Fred Sewell, a 1954 graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music who was a wonderful violinist and chamber musician. This is a grant program of which he would have been particularly proud.” The Sewell Family Foundation has previously supported CMA with funding for the Guarneri String Quartet Residency through its Residency Partnership Program. Among the recipients were the Cavani, Miró, Daedalus, Marian Anderson, Parker, and Dalì String Quartets.

In May 2025, following the announced NEA award rescissions, CMA surveyed its members to assess the impact on the chamber music field specifically. Fifty-five percent of respondents reported a loss of NEA funding, and more than $400,000 confirmed losses were cited in direct and matching funds. Affected organizations included major presenters as well as individual ensembles in every region of the country, pointing to a national need. While future funding remains uncertain, 43% of respondents had already applied for FY26 NEA support, and 72% of those had earmarked that support in upcoming budgets.

Through Classical Commissioning: A Responsive Shift, CMA and the Sewell Family Foundation will make available approximately 16 grants of $2,500 to ensembles with annual budgets below $249,000, and approximately seven grants of $5,000 to organizations with budgets up to $750,000. These flexible, unrestricted grants are intended to support ensembles and presenters committed to programming and/or performing the work of living American composers working in styles associated with contemporary classical music. Funding may be used for general operating expenses that support these performances and related programming, including but not limited to artist fees, production costs, marketing, and administrative overhead.

Applications for the grant program will be considered based on alignment with vision and goals of CMA and the Sewell Family Foundation as well as a demonstration of need and potential impact. Further grant application information, including eligibility requirements and guidelines, will be available when the program opens on August 18. The deadline for applications will be September 18, 2025.

Classical Commissioning: A Responsive Shift is funded by Chamber Music America, with generous support from the Sewell Family Foundation. Additional program support for the Classical Commissioning program is provided by the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, the Amphion Foundation, the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, and the CMA Endowment Fund.

Based in Minneapolis, the Sewell Family Foundation was founded in 1997 by Fred and Gloria Sewell. Its trustees now include the second and third generations of the family as well, many of whom are professional artists in various disciplines. The foundation focuses on improving the lives of people by encouraging excellence in the arts and supporting other causes important to the family.

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.