Arts Nova Scotia – Grants to Individuals (Create, Present & Professional Development)

If you are a working musician based in Nova Scotia, this programme pays for three distinct things: making new work, putting it in front of an audience, and getting better at what you do. Create covers up to CAD $15,000 for developing or creating new material, on your own or with one other artist living in the province. Present covers up to $5,000 for the public presentation of your own work, including promotion and venue hire. Professional Development, also up to $5,000, funds mentors, instructors and consultants. Eligible costs include materials, travel outside your home area, royalties, equipment rental and a contribution to living expenses of up to $2,000 a month while the project runs. What it will not cover is artist fees for yourself, or creative-industries work such as commercial recording and music videos.

You need to be a Canadian citizen or landed immigrant, resident in Nova Scotia for at least twelve months before the deadline, and to meet the province's definition of a professional artist: peer recognition, a history of public presentation, appropriate training, and income from your practice.

Applying means an online form plus a project description, schedule of work, CV, financial template and support material — up to three audio samples, fifteen minutes total, as streaming links. Everything but the form is emailed in. A three-person peer committee scores the quality of the work in your samples, the artistic merit of the project, and its feasibility. Results arrive twelve to fourteen weeks after the deadline. Two intakes a year, 15 May and 15 November.