Society for American Music — John Koegel Latin American/Latinx Music Fellowship (2026)

This is a research fellowship rather than money for making music. It supports scholarly work on Latin American and Latinx musical life — South America, Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean, and how those musical cultures are represented in North America and elsewhere. The award can go towards the practical costs of doing that research: travel for archival or ethnographic work, books, media resources and similar expenses.

The one hard eligibility rule is membership — you must be a member in good standing of the Society for American Music. Beyond that it is open to scholars at any stage of a career, from graduate researchers to established academics, and is awarded competitively. The maximum is $2,000. There is no match-funding requirement, and no indication in the guidelines that costs must be incurred before payment.

Applying is light by grant standards. Alongside the form you send a one-page letter of application with full contact details, a current CV, a narrative of no more than three double-spaced pages describing the project and what it contributes to Latin American/Latinx music scholarship, and a one-page budget. The deadline is 15 October, and the fellowship is offered annually. Recipients file a one-page budget and a final report with the Society's Executive Director within a year of the award. No scoring criteria are published beyond that contribution to scholarship, so the three-page narrative carries most of the weight.