Koda Kultur – Work Grants (arbejdslegater)

This is money for the writing itself — the stretch where you are composing, working on songs or shaping lyrics and have nothing finished to show anyone yet. Koda Kultur's work grants cover all broadly rhythmic genres; if you write classical score music or sound art, the parallel work grants administered by the Danish Composers' Society are the right door instead.

You need to be a Koda member and you have to be the author of the project you describe. Nobody can apply on your behalf. Awards normally start at DKK 12,500 per person and reach DKK 40,000 for projects of a comprehensive nature. Where several members of a band each write and each apply for the same project, individual amounts can fall to around DKK 5,000. It is a straight grant with no match-funding requirement, and you can hold only one per calendar year.

The application is deliberately short: roughly 2,000 characters of project text plus a 300-character summary, a CV as a PDF, three audio files with full composer and lyricist credits, and a note explaining why you chose those particular pieces. Lyrics, if they matter to the work, go in as a single PDF.

There are two deadlines a year, in March and October, both closing at 15:00. The Autor grants committee assesses every application and replies in about two months without giving individual reasons. One project cannot be funded twice across Koda Kultur's pools, though separate phases of the same project can be.