The Matt Marks Impact Fund offers up to $7,500 seed money to begin development on exciting, ambitious projects with Alarm Will Sound that have potential to make significant cultural and social impact. The goal with each project is to attract additional funders and stakeholders to bring the project to full fruition.

Applicants may be of any age or nationality. Visa support for international participants is not available.

Click here for the Application FAQ

Projects that are groundbreaking and unconventional, or composers who are unknown and under-represented, often go unsupported because traditional funders may see them as too risky. Yet these risks often have the potential for the greatest impact because they change the ways we make music and the people we make music with. Alarm Will Sound is committed to making that change in our field.

Innovation, experimentation, unconventionality, and uncertainty can make it difficult to find stakeholders for a project, especially before it exists. Within the established system for funding new commissions, support often goes to well-established practices and artists. There are also systemic roadblocks, especially when it comes to under-represented artists. Finding support for new work is a difficult chicken-egg problem: funding goes to composers and work with an established track record, but establishing a track record needs funding. Furthermore, commissions are linked to high-stakes premieres which discourage taking risks on unconventional or unknown work. Through the Matt Marks Impact Fund, we will break this cycle: workshops and performances will be a concrete opportunity to demonstrate the artistic value of work supported by the fund.

We want to expand the stylistic and demographic diversity of our work and working relationships because we believe that art remains relevant when it reflects the society in which we live and that it makes a difference when it transforms how we experience the world.

-SELECTION-

A panel of Alarm Will Sound musicians along with one guest panelist will evaluate to what degree each proposal:

  • Innovates artistic practices that expand the classical music tradition
  • Opens the field to composers who have been historically excluded from the classical music tradition
  • Creates a space where failure through experimentation is an option
  • Participates in, and shapes the current cultural conversation
  • Diversifies the audience for contemporary classical music
  • Broadens the perspectives of classical musicians
  • Is feasible with funding from MMIF and other secured or anticipated funding
  • Is unlikely to be funded through more conventional means (grants, venue fees, donations, etc.)
  • Has deliverables that could attract additional stakeholders (commissioners, presenters, etc.) to support further work
  • Uses the entire ensemble of musicians. See FAQ.

Throughout this process, please feel free to consult with the panel members on the preparation of your proposal by contacting mmif@alarmwillsound.com.

-TIMELINE-

  • May 15, 2024: Application deadline
  • July 2024: Results announced
  • 2025: Workshops and collaboration with Alarm Will Sound
    • Workshops will occur in various locations and travel funding will be provided for participants to attend workshops.
  • Oct 1, 2025: Completion of proposed work
  • 2026: Project premiered by Alarm Will Sound
    • The scope of funding includes a public presentation. Since the MMIF provides seed-funding, for some proposals this public presentation is framed as a ‘premiere’. In other cases, it’s a work-in-progress, an excerpt, a non-theatrical version, etc. depending on how we best determine in partnership with the applicants how to frame the project’s needs at the onset.

Following the premiere, Alarm Will Sound will evaluate the success and state of each project, determining which projects the group will develop further through partnerships with additional stakeholders to bring that project to full fruition.