Music Creation Projects

This grant buys composing time. It supports Ontario-based professional music creators writing new original work — a single piece, a song set, a larger score — in any genre and at any career stage. It is explicitly not for recording activity; the Ontario Arts Council runs a separate Music Recording Projects program for that.

There are two streams. Self-directed creation, capped at $4,000, covers work you initiate yourself, including electronic music built from sampling and manipulation. Commissioning, capped at $20,000, is for a composer contracted by an ensemble, arts organisation, choreographer or individual artist who commits to premiering the piece; realistically only large-scale works such as opera come near that ceiling. Applicants must be individual Ontario residents. Songwriters must write the music, not lyrics alone. Composers enrolled in a composition degree cannot apply to the self-directed stream.

Eligible costs include your own fee, co-creator and librettist fees, mentor time, score and parts copying, space and equipment rental, small equipment up to around $500, archival recording, and dependant care that lets you take part.

Applications are made in Nova, the Council's online system, which opens roughly two months before each deadline. You submit project details, a budget, two or three audio or video examples, résumés, score excerpts or lyrics, and a commissioner's letter where relevant. The stated priorities are exceptional creativity in composition and songwriting, and widening the range of music available to performers and the public.