Elliot Galvin Trio, IMC, 12 Points Festival, September 2018.
Music resonates deeply with people from all walks of life in Ireland. The musical landscape encompasses a wide variety of genres, traditions and contemporary styles. Irish professional musical life is characterised by a large vibrant community of creative and performing music artists, energised by their engagement with audiences in Ireland and abroad. Our musical life is enhanced by an open internationalism, and by a broad spectrum of widespread youth and community music making.
The Arts Council’s work in music derives from our main Strategy – Making Great Art Work: Arts Council Strategy (2016 –2025). Arising from this, a specific Music Policy and Strategy document is due for publication in Q3/Q4 2022.
Note: While the Council’s Music policy and programmes are not genre-specific and are open to all forms of music practice, the Council’s work in development support of Irish Traditional Music is undertaken in a separate policy and programme area - Traditional Arts.
The Arts Council’s main goals in music are to:
- Work to ensure that high-quality musical experiences are available to all irrespective of means, disability, geography, education, age or experience;
- Support the work of a wide variety of individual professional music artists.
- Support a wide range of organisations that play important roles in the development of music in Ireland;
- Complement the work of other national –level organisations dedicated to the support and promotion of music;
- Understand and respond to the development needs of each individual musical genre in its own terms.
We give effect to these primarily through a series of funding programmes providing supports for (a) individual creative & performing artists (b) a wide range of music organisations serving the public and supporting artists. Each funding scheme has an annual or (occasionally) bi-annual online application process, with all schemes reviewed on an ongoing basis and subject to change.
Click here for Available Funding