AMA Artist Grant - members only page
FALL 2025 FINALISTS
Single vote per member. Voting closes December 2nd, 2025, at 8:00 AM ET
Pittsburgh, PA
About:
Viii Dorsey is a sound-collage artist, vocalist, and poet whose work blends eclectic instrumentation, layered production, and elements of mantra, meditation, and prayer. Her music bridges groove, storytelling, and sound healing as she approaches each project as both experiment and enrichment for herself and the listener.
Artist links:
How I would use the grant:
I would use the AMA grant to enrich my ambient music practice with supportive gear and professional development. Two elements I really would like to incorporate into my workflow are live loop-layering and modular synthesis. I would apply grant funds toward a loop-station I have been researching for a while (the Boss RC-505 Mk2 Loop Station Tabletop Looper (~$659)), as well as coursework in learning modular synthesis (~$750). My intention is to be able to work with vocal looping and synthesis in tandem to apply modified sound parameters to organic vocals and harmonies for a unique sound and personal synth pad that is easily adjustable in real time so it can be incorporated into live-performance as well as implemented for a more cohesive workflow for recorded works.
Please find the links for the online program and the gear mentioned below:
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London, England
About:
Isaac Pross a London-based composer, violinist, and multi-instrumentalist. Classically trained while growing up, he studied composition and violin at BU Tanglewood Institute and Idyllwild and was awarded by the YoungArts Foundation. He participated in the Los Angeles Philharmonic Composer Fellowship Program, in which the LA Philharmonic premiered his original orchestral composition. Upon graduating high school, he traveled to Varanasi, India to study traditional Hindustani tabla. He briefly attended Yale, studying comparative literature, before moving back to Los Angeles to compose short film scores, produce for singers, and create sonic installations presented in galleries. Last year he apprenticed at Greenhouse Studios in Reykjavík, assisting Valgeir Sigurðsson. He is currently pursuing an MFA at Goldsmiths University in London. Intrigued by the tension between tradition and innovation, he’s interested in music as a form of protest and communion.
Artist link:
How I would use the grant:
I intend to use the AMA Artist Grant to help fund a performance installation at the end of this year. I wish to perform electroacoustic violin with live electronics and live video art in a beautiful and acoustically vibrant Elizabethan Church in London. The Old Church is a community-driven non-profit arts venue in Stoke Newington. As I explore different styles of music and collaborate with other musicians, filmmakers, and sculptors, I find ambient music more exciting and necessary than ever. Having moved to London earlier this year, I’ve found community through attending concerts and shows, especially within inclusive ambient and experimental programming. In a city as loud and stimulating as London, I find the spaciousness of ambient music, particularly presented and shared in an awe-inducing space, endlessly inspiring. This project requires funding to cover the rental of The Old Church, as well as gear rentals, which includes a well-designed sound-system, lights, and projectors. This performance would consist of new ambient music, new video art, and custom lighting. I hope that this performance would bring together thoughtful and sensitive artists, musicians, and listeners.
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Iowa City, Iowa
About:
Described as being “unafraid to be anything at all” and making “shadowy music that prickles on your skin”, Gabi Vanek is a bassoonist who exists in a world of drone, doom and noise. With her sonic interests often the aesthetic and tonal crossover of the latter with contemporary classical music, she has had the privilege of performing as both a soloist and ensemble member at small and large festivals, conferences, and series such as the Darmstädter Internationale Ferienkurse, International Double Reed Society, Oh My Ears, Feed Me Weird Things, and exhibited at the Osaka University of the Arts Electro-Acoustic Music Festival.
Her further scholarly activity has included lectures and workshops regarding unconventional bassoon practice at Columbus State University, University of Iowa, and University of North Carolina School of the Arts. She had additionally spoken about classical idiom and compositional structure in death metal at the 2016 Extreme Music: Hearing and Nothingness conference at University of Denmark - Odense, with a follow up article later published in the Metal Music Studies journal.
Artist links:
How I would use the grant:
The project entitled “Rot”, was originally conceived in 2019 as I continued to become deeply interested in acoustic ecology. Originally intended only to be an album with companion video, the idea further expanded into the plan of cultivating different types of fungi, lichens, and moss in/on the bassoon and to collect the infrasonic and ultrasonic sounds of the organisms' growth within the instrument's unique acoustic space.
As a bassoonist, I have greatly enjoyed my performance career, but I have wanted to further my involvement with interdisciplinary practice. I have always been fascinated by sounds of the unknown and as part of my physical art practice I believe that there can be a conversation between the sonic and an object's apparent visual simplicity. Rot, in my eyes, embodies this.
The intention of said project is to record the growth of the organics on four pieces of the instrument(s) with a specific weekly observation and collection plan. The purpose of this is to compare and contrast the sounds from different stages of the process, to have an estimated length of said growth cycles, and observe the stages of decay of the bassoon. When I decide that the growth is "adequate", the remains of the instrument(s) will be sealed in vitrines. These act as terrariums to be presented in a non-traditional gallery space, specifically a botanical center. The audio, adjusted to human hearing, would be played around the space in surround sound. The instrument now sounds different than ever imagined. In this quite literal acoustic environment, the parts of the bassoon present an almost synesthetic realization of what is being heard around the space. These are sounds that are unheard, both from gardens and lawns and to most certainly the orchestra.
The funds of the grant, if received, would be used in particular to put towards the purchase of an ultrasonic or infrasonic microphone (specifically a PCB Piezotronics 378A07). I will be testing and recording in both the infrasonic and ultrasonic range and appropriate microphones are essential to bring the project to appropriate fruition.
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San Francisco, California
About:
Joel St. Julien (he/him) is a Haitian-American composer, sound and video artist based in San Francisco. Joel has written music for documentaries, short / feature films, podcasts, and dance. He is a firm believer in experimentation/fusion with acoustic and electronic elements in sound oscillating through escapism and the mysticism of the present tense: music both being art and spiritual practice.
Joel has shared music at the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, Stanford University’s CCRMA, Gray Area, CounterPulse Festival, Land and Sea Gallery, Re:Sound, Cone Shape Top Center for Arts and Music, The Lab, and Kadist Gallery.
His music has also been featured and reviewed in Resident Advisor, The Wire, Disquiet, KQED, Foxy Digitalis, a closer listen, Dublab, and many more.
Joel has released music independently and on Land and Sea, Dragon's Eye Recordings, Beached Records, and CST Imprint.
Artist links:
How I would use the grant:
I would use this grant to support the completion of my next album, specifically for professional mixing and mastering and some support for press and promotion. This support would help me bring the project to a more polished and immersive level, to share it with a broader audience. Thanks for your consideration!
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Boston, Massachusetts
About:
Denver Nuckolls is a performer, composer, audio engineer, and educator based in the Boston, MA area. His creative practice centers around his various operations as a sonic shapeshifter, translating a world flooded with sound through a variety of explorations in musical presentation, documentation, and communication. His performances and compositions have activated spaces and events including The New Colossus Festival [w/ The Croaks; New York City, NY - 2025], Chattanooga Noise Night [w/ OBOSample; Chattanooga, TN - 2025], Piano Craft Gallery [Boston, MA - 2025], NICE, A Fest [w/ The Croaks; Boston, MA - 2024], Jazz in July [w/ Lenny Marcus Trio; Salem, VA - 2024], MassArt Art Museum [w/ Maria Finkelmeier; Boston, MA - 2024], Museum of Science [Boston, MA; 2023], MG Space [w/ Yolanda He Yang; Beijing, China - 2023], Taubman Museum of Art [w/ Lenny Marcus Trio; Roanoke, VA - 2023], Olive Tjaden Gallery at Cornell University [w/ The Boneyarders; Ithaca, NY - 2022], Fostek Hall at the Jefferson Center [w/ Lenny Marcus Trio; Roanoke, VA - 2022], and Carnegie Hall [w/ Virginia Tech Wind Ensemble and Combined Choirs; NYC, NY - 2017].
Some notable accomplishments of his include being selected as an Artist-In-Residence at Stove Works [Chattanooga, TN - 2025], an Exclusive Fellow for the Virtual Percussion Music Festival [2021], and an Ensemble Winner [w/ Virginia Tech Percussion Ensemble] - Collegiate Chamber Ensemble Competition - Percussive Arts Society International Convention [Indianapolis, IN - 2018].
Since 2022, he has released solo projects it comes in waves, dead account, 3 Days in June, Live at Peace House, and his most recent solo endeavor, morals [out now via Spectral Mutation - Asheville, NC]. His work has been documented in Boston Art Review [Boston, MA], Digital America [Richmond, VA], Allston Pudding [Allston, MA], and Rosy Overdrive [Digital].
Artist links:
How I would use the grant:
Should I receive the AMA Artist Grant and accompanying funding, I would use it to support the wholistic documentation of one live iteration of my practice as of spring, summer, and fall 2025. For some context - almost all of my previous releases [with the exception of 'Live at Peace House'] have come to fruition in a very ‘in-the-box’ manner; I would utilize myself and my experiences in performance more as source material for sound design and digital composition than as a means to develop a practice that can exist and thrive in a humanistic space [i.e. live performance]. However, 2025 has found me craving a return to the wellspring of spontaneity, deep attention, and communal connection that comes with long-form, in-person music-making. This is exemplified in a recent performance of mine [linked below in the ‘Work Samples’ section] at Piano Craft Gallery [Boston, MA] in which I utilized a combined electro-acoustic setup to merge my various improvisatory and compositional practices. Though it is technically documented, I am choosing to view this performance as proof-of-concept, and I want to take the project a step further.
My aim is this: create a new set of musical material that exemplifies all aspects of my current practice [most of which has focused on the affectation of electronics on the human improvising mind and how that may translate to real-world circumstances], organize a variety of on-site performances over the course of a year [this timeline is not set in stone, just a placeholder right now], and collaborate with a variety of artists that I admire or have worked with previously [filmmakers, performance artists, movement artists, etc.] to ‘bring the music to life’ in combination with their practices. In this way the project becomes not only that of documentation, but an uplifting of my colleagues via financial support, the opportunity to have their names on a grant-endowed project, and in generating a catalyst for continuity; these films could be submitted to film festivals and other various calls-for-works [benefiting not just me, but the artists I choose to collaborate with], the music could be toured, etc. This project is not intended to be a means to an end, but as a seed to a beautiful experience in collaboration and continued fulfillment.
I do not yet know how the finances would shake out, but I estimate that the amount of awarded funds would correspond to the number of films to be created. For example, an award of $600 could support three shorter performance films that cost $200 each to create, two longer performance films that cost $300 each to create, or one massive production that costs the entire $600. This is obviously subject to change should the details need to be sorted out in the future, but I believe firmly in supporting any collaborating artists monetarily [and ideally with what they’re actually worth].
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AMA ARTIST GRANT
The AMA Artist Grant supports AMA members in creating new works in ambient music, offering flexible funding for projects, equipment, and artist development. In Fall 2025, AMA will award a total of $2,400: $1,200 to 1 member and $600 to 2 runner-ups. Winners will be decided by AMA members' votes.
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