The Musicians Foundation recently received a $25,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to be used to organize a national conference of organizations that assist professional performing artists in times of need and crisis. 

The conference, which gains urgency and a new significance in the COVID-19 pandemic, is currently slated to take place in the fall of 2021 in New York City and will address the situation in which performing artists have suffered extreme loss of income as current and future engagements have been cancelled. The conference will be organized by the Musicians Foundation in tandem with a steering committee of national and regional organizations, including the Actors Fund, MusiCares, Jazz Foundation, and Episcopal Actors Guild. 

“These awards demonstrate the resilience of the arts in America, showcasing not only the creativity of their arts project but the organizations’ agility in the face of a national health crisis,” said Mary Anne Carter, chairperson of the National Arts Endowment. 

The award is one of 1,016 grants the endowment has approved in this category and part of more than $84 million in grants made in the fiscal year 2020. 

The Musicians Foundation will convene the first national meeting of organizations that provide financial, medical, advisory, and other services to professional performing artists encountering circumstances that curtail their ability to work and remain financially stable. 

The project will be the first effort to draw together national and regional organizations to discuss the needs of this constituency, effective practices to meet these needs, potential partnerships for sharing information and resources, and strategies to increase public and private support of professional performing artists. The project will also compile and disseminate reliable data on the organizations and the performing artists they serve.