South Arts has given Jazz Road Creative Residencies grants totaling nearly $730,000 to 20 recipients from 14 states. The individual grants range from $5,000 to $40,000.
The nonprofit is headquartered in Atlanta and partners with the National Endowment for the Arts, state arts agencies across the region and foundations to support artists and arts organizations.
The jazz grant program is designed to give working jazz artists flexibility for how their residency can be defined. The money can be used to fund new creative visions or community engagement.
Among the recipients is the Rev. Andrew Barnett, senior associate rector for program at All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Atlanta. He is the founding director of the Theodicy Jazz Collective, which performs and leads services across the United States and England. Barnett has co-composed a commissioned jazz mass for Canterbury Cathedral in the United Kingdom.
The $40,000 grant will allow Barnett to accept an invitation from the Chapel Choir of Syracuse University for the Theodicy Jazz Collective to compose, perform and record a suite of “Freedom Songs.”
The grants will fund a variety of other projects. For example, Andromeda Turre, a jazz artist from New York, will complete and record her new work “From The Earth,” a project that is inspired by the disproportionate impact of climate change on people of color.
Filmmaker Ali Jackson from Detroit will produce a documentary series to be called Mind The Music to explore the artistic journeys of master musicians in New York City and New Orleans. South Carolina’s Quiana Parler will use the grant to preserve and promote Gullah culture and its connections to jazz through compositions inspired by stories and memories of Gullah elders.
“We are at such an amazingly creative time for the field of jazz,” Drew Tucker, director of jazz with South Arts, said in a press release. “Artists are building their work across disciplines, blending with new media in exciting ways and propelling their artistry forward while still looking at the legends who paved the way. South Arts is so excited to support artists with these resources so they can enact their dreams.”
The program is funded by the Doris Duke Foundation and the Mellon Foundation.
This year’s recipients are:
Andrew Barnett
Atlanta
Bryan Carter
New York City
Darrian Jerrell Douglas
West Orange, New Jersey
Diane Downs
Louisville, Kentucky
Nelson Eubanks
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Lenora Zenzalai Helm
Durham, North Carolina
Jake Hertzog
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Ali Jackson
Detroit
Laura Lambuley
Miami
Stephen Lehman
Altadena, California
Abel Mireles
El Paso, Texas
Chase Morrin
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts
Israel Neuman
Sugar Land, Texas
Jesse Palter
Huntington Woods, Michigan
Quiana Parler
North Charleston, South Carolina
Nicholas Payton
New Orleans
Aditya Prakash
Los Angeles
Andromeda Turre
Katonah, New York
Benjamin Williams
Los Angeles
Damon Zick
Burbank, California
