American Musicological Society Receives Cuts to Funding

The almost century-old society for the study of music, history, and culture, has lost its government grants due to broader U.S. policy changes 

Founded in 1934, the American Musicological Society (AMS) recently received notice from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) that all four of its active NEH grants have been terminated, effective as of April 1, 2025. 

According to the AMS, these grants were expected to account for more than $363,000 in AMS income over the next two years. 

The grants would have been used to support projects including the Many Musics of America, Music of the United States (MUSA), MUSA: Telling Our Stories, and Music Means: A Digital Platform for Exploring Music and Meaning in America. 

This news comes as the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, has implemented various cuts across federal agencies — including reductions in grants and staff within the NEH, in order to “streamline government operations and reduce spending,” Classic107 reports. 

Further, The New York Times added that cuts within the NEH to staff and funding may involve as many as 80% of staffers being laid off from the roughly 180-person agency. 

The AMS has several pending grant proposals under consideration by the NEH for a combined total of $1.35 million; in recent years, it has received at least 10% to 15% of its total annual funding from such grants.

With around 3,000 individual members spread across 15 regional chapters in the U.S., Canada, and other locations, the AMS also hosts 60 committees and subcommittees. 

In response to the cutbacks, AMS Executive Director Siovahn Walker has called for alternative funding sources, including donations. 

“The termination of these grants was part of an agency-wide rescission that impacted all or almost all NEH grantees, including state humanities councils, the frontline funders for humanities programming in the United States,” Walker wrote in a public letter to all AMS members and constituents.

“As a professional historian, I am deeply distressed by the likely effects of these cuts,” she continued. “I can think of few other times in modern history when the people of the United States have needed the humanities more; when we have needed to reflect on history and the complexity of the human condition more than at this moment.

“I am resolved to oppose these cuts and find alternative sources of funding for the affected programs. I am resolved because the loss of these programs (or a failure to fight for them) is not a small thing. It would represent an abdication of the basic duty at the heart of the humanities: to pursue truth in service of a better understanding of the human condition.”