The GRAMMY Museum Grant Program has awarded more than $200,000 in grants to 14 recipients in the United States to help facilitate research on a variety of music-based subjects, as well as support a number of archiving and preservation programs.
Funded by The Recording Academy, the Grant Program provides funding annually to organizations and individuals to support efforts that advance the archiving and preservation of the recorded sound heritage of the Americas for future generations, in addition to research projects related to the impact of music on the human condition.
With a $20,000 grant, the Yale University Library will preserve and digitize approximately 335 hours of unique noncommercial audio, predominantly from 1937–1956, featuring music by Charles Ives. The content will be ingested into the library's digital preservation system and made available via one of its mediated streaming tools.
Berklee College of Music in Boston will receive $13,000 to digitize an impressive collection of analog video tapes spanning 1985–2001, which capture music legends imparting their wisdom in memorable commencement speeches and unique performances.
Living Blues magazine co-founder Jim O'Neal was awarded $5,000, which will be used to catalog and assess a historic collection of more than 2,000 tapes of interviews and live music. These one-of-a-kind tapes, which date from 1968 to 2012, document many major figures in blues, R&B, gospel, and jazz from Chicago, Mississippi, Memphis, and elsewhere.
The Memphis, Tenn.-based Soulsville Foundation will receive $13,000 to support an effort to digitize, preserve and share a collection of more than 250 concert and promotional posters, advertisements and album artwork proofs highlighting the rich history of Stax Records from 1957–1975.
Awarded $5,000, T. Christopher Alpin in Pasadena, Calif., will evaluate and preserve the sound collections of the Fort Sill Chiricahua/Warm Springs Apache tribe. Collections contain the musical heritage of the Chihene, or Warm Springs Apache youth impressed into Nednai camps in the Mexican Sierra Madres between 1882 and 1883.
Iowa State University Foundation was awarded more than $19,000 for a scientific research grant that will examine the acute and long-term effects of therapeutic singing on both the motor and non-motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease, including depression, stress and inflammation.
To date, the Grant Program has awarded more than $7 million to nearly 400 initiatives that explore the intersection of music and science for the benefit of the general public.
"The compelling and far-reaching endeavors represented by our 2017 grantees reflect a commitment to issues that The Recording Academy and GRAMMY Museum members are passionate about: our goal to recognize and sustain the value of music in all of our lives," said Neil Portnow, President/CEO of The Recording Academy and Chair of the GRAMMY Museum Board.
View a complete list of 2017 GRAMMY Museum Grant Program recipients
