2025-2026 The Cedar Commissions
Location: MN — Twin Cities Metro
Type: Call for Submissions
Categories:
Music
Deadline: 07/18/2025
Competition / prize
Now in its fifteenth year, the Cedar Commissions is a cohort-based program that supports six early-career/emerging Minnesota-based composers and musicians in creating and debuting 30 minutes of new original music. This program is made possible by the Jerome Foundation.
Selected Artists Receive:
A $4,500 stipend
Professional development & artist-determined mentorship
Professional headshots
Marketing support from Cedar staff
Tech rehearsal, high-quality live performance documentation (photos, multitrack audio, and video)
Performance Dates: February 20 & 21, 2026 at The Cedar Cultural Center
Cohort Commitments:
Six monthly in-person cohort meetings (Sept 2025 – Feb 2026)
Both performance nights
A final wrap-up meeting and evaluation in March 2026
Eligibility:
1. Applicants from ALL backgrounds, musical genres and styles are eligible
2. You must be an early career / emerging artist to be eligible. Read more on this definition from Jerome, here.
3. You must apply as a lead artist, not as a group, to be eligible.
4. Applicants must live in the state of Minnesota to be eligible.
*degree-seeking students are not eligible for The Cedar Commissions
HOW TO APPLY:
1. Up to two pages or up to three minutes of video describing your artistic experience and project proposal. (Please submit text documents in PDF format)
2. Project summary no more than 350 characters in length.
3. Two audio or video work samples totaling no more than 5 minutes in length *Audio and Video submissions must be hosted on any 3rd party site (YouTube, Vimeo, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.). Please attach a brief transcript or rough outline of your video submission, as well.
Applicants who receive a commission will be notified no later than Thursday, August 15th, 2025.
*If this application process presents barriers to you based on language, location, or disability, The Cedar will accommodate special application requests to the best of our ability.
Please contact John Marks at jmarks@thecedar.org