PPL and PRS For Music Foundation have partnered to invest £200,000 per year in new music and artist development.
The money will go towards supporting musicians applying for funding through two of the foundation’s flagship initiatives – the Momentum Music Fund and International Showcase Fund. In recent years, these funds have helped the development of artists including Slaves, Everything Everything, Kate Tempest, Glass Animals, Wolf Alice, Ghetts, East India Youth, Little Simz, Ghostpoet and Julia Biel.
The new partnership with PPL, combined with contributions from all current partners, will allow PRS for Music Foundation to invest over £1million per year in grants through the Momentum Music and International Showcase Funds.
The Momentum Music Fund provides grants of between £5,000 and £15,000 to help talented English-based artists and bands at key stages in their development; while the International Showcase Fund supports artists with grants of up to £5,000 as a contribution to travel costs, visas and per diems, enabling them to perform at key showcasing festivals and conferences and take their first steps into new international territories. Such events include Eurosonic, Reeperbahn, Womex, Canadian Music Week and SXSW.
This partnership comes as the deadlines approach for funding applications to the Momentum Music Fund (15th November) and the International Showcase Fund to attend SXSW (28th November).
Commenting on the deal, PPL chief executive Peter Leathem said: “We are very excited to be partnering with PRS for Music Foundation to provide financial and career development support to new talent. The Foundation has played a pivotal role in the success story of many UK artists and we hope that, with additional significant investment and involvement from PPL, we can jointly fund more records, more tours, and more great music.
“With the November deadlines fast-approaching for the Momentum Fund and SXSW showcases, we would encourage acts to submit their applications to benefit from financial support that could make a huge difference to their careers both in the UK and overseas.”
Vanessa Reed, executive director of the PRS for Music Foundation, welcomed the partnership with PPL in advance of two major funding deadlines for artists.
“I’m delighted that PPL will be partnering with PRS Foundation on two of our flagship talent development programmes which are increasingly important to artists working in independent music. Both the International Showcase Fund and Momentum consistently receive high levels of strong applications. Thanks to this new partnership with PPL we will be able to reach and support more of those talented artists, increasing their chances of building a sustainable career and enabling them to take their music to audiences across the world.”
