Commissions

FreshGrass is dedicated to providing roots music artists with opportunities to create new work and to take artistic risks outside the pressures of the commercial music space. We do this through several FreshGrass commissioning programs: the Composition Commission, FreshScores, Concertos, Residencies, and launching in 2024, Writing and Podcast Fellowships.

For this year’s 2024 FreshGrass | North Adams at MASS MoCA, we’re thrilled to present the following commissioned works:

2024 FreshScores 

Aoife O’Donovan, Leyla McCalla, Dom Flemons, and many others have been recipients of the annual favorite FreshScores commissions. Artists compose live music to film and perform the work live each year at FreshGrass festivals in North Adams, MA and Bentonville, AR. Unique to this year’s FreshGrass | North Adams, we’re commissioning the creation of the FILMS too! In the past, the films have largely been silent films in the public domain. FreshGrass is excited to welcome some of the most exciting filmmakers working today to premiere new films at the festival with live scores from some of our favorite artists.

Billy Luther, writer for the hit series Dark Winds and director of the critically-acclaimed, Taika Waititi produced feature Frybread Face and Me, will share a new project with original music performed by multi-instrumentalist, composer, and 2021 Sundance Composers Lab Fellow Olivia Komahcheet.

We’ll see a new short film from Kirsten Johnson, celebrated documentary filmmaker behind Netflix’s Dick Johnson Is Dead and multiple award winning Cameraperson, and cinematographer of the Academy Award-winning film Citizenfour, with music from FreshGrass artist Adia Victoria.

Mariano Dongo, a filmmaker from Lima, Peru whose work has been shown at Tribeca Film Festival, New York Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam and Palm Springs ShortFest among others, will present a short film with original music by Forrest Gray, whose composing credits include Apple TV+’s The Morning Show, Netflix’s Bridgerton and Dear White People, and Steven Soderbergh’s 2010 documentary And Everything Is Going Fine.

And finally, FreshGrass 2023 performer Sierra Ferrell and artist Ozzie Juarez star in multidisciplinary filmmaker Zinzi Gugu Johnson new project, with an original score by GRAMMY Award-winning cellist and composer Andrew Yee.

2024 Concertos

Béla Fleck, Cynthia Sayer, and John Reischman will independently be performing their own original arrangements and performed first live at FreshGrass | North Adams! Truly not-to-miss performances at FreshGrass.

To learn more about FreshGrass Commissions and the artists and organizations that have taken part, visit freshgrassfoundation.org/commissions