National Endowment for the Arts Announces More Than $20 Million in Grants

December 8, 2005

		Contact: Sally Gifford 202-682-5606 giffords@arts.gov

Washington, D.C. - The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced today that it will award $20.4 million to 844 grants. The Arts Endowment will distribute $20,406,500 in this round of FY 2006 funding to nonprofit national, regional, state, and local organizations across the country, funding Access to Artistic Excellence grants as well as Literature Fellowships for individuals.

"This year the National Endowment for the Arts celebrates its 40th anniversary of leadership in the arts," said NEA Senior Deputy Chairman Eileen Mason. "Through these grants and fellowships, the NEA continues its legacy of bringing arts of the highest quality to communities nationwide."

Access to Artistic Excellence grants support the creation and presentation of work in the disciplines of dance, design, folk and traditional arts, literature, local arts agencies, media arts, museums, music, musical theater, opera, presenting, theater, and visual arts. Projects include commissions, residencies, workshops, performances, exhibitions, publications, festivals, and professional development programs. Through this category, the NEA will fund 794 projects out of 1,353 eligible applications, for a total federal investment of $19,406,500.

Examples of projects supported by Access to Artistic Excellence grants include:

• Support for a 2006 presentation of the nation’s oldest African American community festival in Philadelphia, featuring local and international African American dancers, musicians, and performers.
• Support for Skybowl, a landscape installation by artist/architect Maya Lin, that is part of the Confluences consortium project taking place in Idaho, Washington, and Oregon.
• Support for a consortium residency project in which GRAMMY® award-winning vocal ensemble Chanticleer will present workshops and festivals for high school choruses, choir directors, and adult singers in California, Connecticut, and Minnesota.

Literature Fellowships are the Arts Endowment's most direct investment in American creativity, encouraging the production of new work and allowing writers the time and means to write. The agency received more than 900 applications for its Creative Writing Fellowships in Prose. Fifty writers will receive fellowships of $20,000 each, including creative nonfiction writer Margot Singer of Granville, Ohio, and fiction writer Terence Cheng of New York, New York, who will use his award to travel to China and Japan to conduct research for a novel-in-progress.

Grants listings noted in this announcement:

Access to Artistic Excellence

Literature Fellowships

Grant listings for these categories are also available by state.

Some details of the projects listed in this grant announcement are subject to change, contingent upon prior Endowment approval. For additional information, contact the National Endowment for the Arts' Office of Communications at 202-682-5570.

The National Endowment for the Arts is a public agency dedicated to supporting excellence in the arts – both new and established – bringing the arts to all Americans, and providing leadership in arts education. Established by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government, the Endowment is the nation's largest annual funder of the arts, bringing great art to all 50 states, including rural areas, inner cities, and military bases.

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