Helping working musicians through the lean season

Freezing temperatures, skyrocketing light and heat bills, damaging storms: For many, winter is the most difficult time of the year.

But for working musicians like Trenton Ayers of Holly Springs, MS, January and February are especially challenging. During this stretch between the holiday rush and the start of music festival season in the spring, paid gigs are few and far between. Would-be audiences opt to stay home due to cold and bad weather, and bars and other venues cut back on live performances as fewer patrons come through their doors.

Add in this year’s historic winter storms, which left Trenton and others in Mississippi without power for weeks, and the result is a truly difficult season for artists who rely on gig income to survive.

Thankfully, music lovers like you are there to get them through the lean season.

This year, Music Maker Foundation introduced our new Lean Season grant program. These grants were created especially for our Next Generation Artists, younger working musicians who have devoted their lives to keeping American roots traditions alive – and who may have trouble making ends meet in the dead of winter. Our first round of Lean Season grants went out to 27 artists this winter.

Cellist, singer-songwriter, and former Carolina Chocolate Drops member Leyla McCalla was among our first Lean Season grant recipients. Leyla recently sent us photos of her three adorable kids and wrote:

Our Lean Season grant program is only possible because of your generous support. Thank you for loving American music – and the artists who make it – as much as we do.