skip Heller <velaires@earthlink.net> wrote: on 4/17/03 8:56 AM, Samerivertwice@aol.com at Samerivertwice@aol.com wrote:
Fred Hersch, Patricia Barber and Henry Threadgill all received Guggenheim grants this year. Dave Douglas is closing in...
(Or did Dave already receive one?)
Tom
Patricia Barber? Is there no quality control in the grants process? Meanwhile, Marshall Allen has no grant funding. If I wasn't revelling in the fact that the world's not fair, I'd be pissed off right now. skip h Uh, before you get a wild hair up your butt on this, Skip, has Marshall Allen actually applied for grants that he hasn't received, and if he has, are his applications any good? In nearly all grant situations (and I've been on a lot of grant panels over the years), artists are often their own worst enemies: submitting badly chosen, badly recorded work samples that aren't relevant to what they are asking to support (flute solos with a request to do a music theater project is one example I remember) and/or don't accurately reflect what they really can do (sending the newest recording cause it's readily available rather than the best recording). And then there are lots of very badly written project descriptions and/or artist statements. If an artist doesn't make a great case for their work, even if there's a sympathetic ear on a panel, it can be VERY difficult to convince panelists who aren't familiar with what the artist does that the application is competitive. Grantsmanship is largely about submitting the best work sample you can, being very clear about what you want to do and providing support materials that make it seem as if you can do what you propose. If you provide all that, you'll usually make the first cut. If an application doesn't have all that, it's got to be from someone that the majority of the panel knows and agrees that the work is excellent and, especially now that panels and the applicant pool are more mixed (thankfully it's not just about "classical" music anymore), there are very few applicants for which this is likely to be the case. Yeah, the world isn't always fair, but a lot of artists really don't understand how to present their work in this context. -- Herb Levy P O Box 9369 Fort Worth, TX 76147 herb@eskimo.com