New Music USA Announces 2025 Creator Fund Awardees

Cellist Zachary Mowitz and composer Juantio Becenti won a performer-composer grant, and 62 other musicians received $224k total in funding

62 musicians from 14 different states have been selected to receive a total of $224,000 in funding from New Music USA's New Music Creator Fund.

The grants are given each year to individual music creators (broadly defined) working in any genre, to enable them to reach the next stage of their creative practice. Music across the creative spectrum is considered, and collaboration around new music is valued as the central element.

This year's awardees were selected from the South, the West, and New York — and in 2026, the grants will be open to creators based in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and New York.

In 2025, New Music USA also awarded the inaugural Thea Musgrave Performer-Composer Collaboration Grant to the Los Angeles-based cellist Zachary Mowitz and composer Juantio Becenti. As a result, Becenti will write a piece on the subject of environmental injustices faced by Becenti’s Diné (Navajo) community, particularly land justice and access to clean water.

The work will then be performed by Mowitz's ensemble Modality Music.

The full list of recipients is as follows: