The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage has announced its 2025 grantees: 44 organizations and individuals around the Philadelphia area. Among them are The Philadelphia Orchestra, PRISM Quartet, Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra, and the Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz & Performing Arts. A dozen local artists, working across a range of creative disciplines, have been recognized with Pew Fellowships, each receiving $85,000 in unrestricted funds.
Also today, The Pew Center announced its new executive director, effective on Jan. 5 of the new year. She is Christina Vassallo, former executive director of the Fabric Workshop and Museum, and more recently the Alice & Harris Weston Director of Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center. “What draws me to The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage,” Vassallo says in a statement, “is its dual identity as both a grantmaker and a hub for ideas, championing ambitious initiatives while investing in the long-term strength of the region’s cultural ecosystem.”
This year’s Pew Fellows include two musicians: Kendrah Butler-Waters, a pianist, violinist and vocalist rooted in Philly’s jazz community; and Nathalie Joachim, a flutist, vocalist and composer also presently serving as Composer in Residence at Opera Philadelphia. They join an array of visual artists, filmmakers, directors and choreographers in the current class.
The Pew Center has also earmarked $7.3 million in creative project grants for more than two dozen institutions, “to produce cultural experiences that connect with communities and audiences across the greater Philadelphia region.” One such grant will support a Blacktronika exhibition organized by King Britt at the African American Museum in Philadelphia, featuring audio and video installations, workshops, and interactive tools.
The Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz & Performing Arts is receiving a $240,000 grant to create an artist-in-residence program, titled Soundscapes for Tomorrow. The artists in the series will develop new work and participate in artist talks, workshops and performances; they are saxophonists Tia Fuller and Miguel Zenón, trumpeter Nabate Isles, trombonist Papo Vázquez, and bassist Derrick Hodge.
Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra will receive funding for a Black Women Composers Initiative, which will involve concerts, discussions and a podcast showcasing the compositional achievements of Kathryn Bostic, Courtney Bryan, Valerie Coleman, and Hannah Kendall. PRISM Quartet’s grant will support Roots and Branches, a concert exploring folk and bluegrass in collaboration with multi-instrumentalists Jake Blount and Leyla McCalla.
The Philadelphia Orchestra is receiving a $360,000 grant for The Party, a genre-blending operatic production inspired by Marisol Escobar’s 1965 sculptural installation of the same name. Artist Alex Da Corte and composer Austin Fisher will collaborate on a piece involving the orchestra and a cast of singers, which “explores themes of femininity, image, and artifice as it satirizes social rituals and consumer culture.”
Six grants will support projects related to America’s 250th anniversary in 2026. Among them is Orchestra 2001’s ‘A More Perfect Union: Musical Reflections on Five Amendments to the U.S. Constitution,’ a concert series that interprets five constitutional amendments through contemporary classical music, featuring works from 30 American composers. In related fashion, WXPN will mount ‘Declarations of Independents: Philly Anthems’ — commissioning new songs from established artists, including Eric Bazilian of The Hooters and Eliza Hardy Jones of The War On Drugs, with a live performance element and a resulting LP, reflecting on the idea of independence.
For more about The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage’s 2025 grantees, visit its website.