Emerging Traditional Artists Program

This programme pays for your own learning rather than for a record or a tour. If you play a traditional music — old-time, bluegrass, ballad singing, a tradition carried from another country into the South — the award funds whatever would deepen your practice: travelling to meet other players in your tradition, taking courses, buying software or gear to build an online presence, or continuing education you could not otherwise reach. Music sits alongside foodways, craft and storytelling here; it is a folk and traditional arts programme, not a music-only one.

You need to be an individual artist, at least 18, early in your practice, and legally able to work permanently in the US. Beyond that you must meet one of three geographic tests: two years living in an Appalachian Regional Commission county across seven Southern states, two years in a Delta Regional Authority county, or membership of a state or federally recognised tribe. Twenty-four awards are made across those three groups. Past ETAP and In These Mountains fellows cannot reapply.

Each award is a flat $5,000, paid in one instalment at the start of the period, with few restrictions and no final report. No match funding. Awardees do commit to two virtual workshops, one in-person convening, a peer mentor pairing and a recorded interview.

You apply through Salesforce, answering six life-story questions in writing or by video of up to fifteen minutes, plus work samples and optional letters of support. An anonymous panel weighs community impact most heavily (35%), then your informal training or apprenticeship (30%), skill and dedication (25%), and your plan for the money (10%).