The Soundbox Fellowship Program (SFP) nurtures musicianship and builds community for all artist-curators.
For the 21st-century, finding mutual artistic advocacy and community between composers, performers, and audiences is a great and ongoing challenge.
Deep down, we ask: what is art-making for and what does it mean to you?
The Soundbox Fellowship Program is at once an academy and platform, offering a professional environment that combines both philosophical and practical elements of the vocation into a short residency. Serving composers and performers, SFP is an outgrowth of the Suncoast Composer Fellowship Program, the original residency program serving composers.
A special quality of SFP is the emphasis on maintaining similar generations of practicing composers and performers.
A pilot fellowship program for performing musicians will be launched in Summer 2026. Stay tuned!
The following dates for the Soundbox Fellowship Program for the 2025/26 season are announced:
Composing and Recording Workshop: December 27, 2025–January 3, 2026 (applications closed)
SFP for Composers: April 8–13, 2026 (program details to be announced)
SFP for Composers: July 22-27, 2026
Additional program in August to be announced shortly!
What is the Soundbox Fellowship Program?
The Suncoast Composer Fellowship Program brings together a community of performers and composers who interact with the Sarasota community and bring the enthusiasm of our music-making to all corners of the globe. At the same time, the program addresses certain urgent questions that face music-making in the 21st century. For example, how can we introduce and lift the voices of wonderful composers today to more communities around the world? After new music is premiered, they often collect dust on the shelves. How do we bring these works into our music-making today? What tools do we need to become advocates for music of our times?
Each iteration of the Soundbox Fellowship Program has a specific educational mission. The Soundbox Fellowship Program offers opportunities to all composers at various stages of their careers to develop their portfolios, receive excellent mentorship from acclaimed composer faculty, workshop and record their compositions with internationally-acclaimed resident artists, and preview the working environment of a composer’s career path in a supportive and nurturing environment.Our programs foster a new generation of musical advocates by creating opportunities for composers and performers to address important philosophical issues facing classical and contemporary music today.
Learn more about the upcoming program on the Composing and Recording Workshop page.
Are there currently performance programs for instrumentalists or vocalists?
A pilot program for SFP in Shanghai, China will serve both composers and instrumentalists. This program brings together both Western and Eastern musical perspectives and encourages dialogue between a developing generation of artists. Programs in the future for instrumentalists based in Sarasota or for vocalists are being developed for future years.
General Residency Structure and Curriculum
All faculty, staff, and participants reside in the same housing complex. The home base of Soundbox Ventures is in Sarasota, FL. For programs in Sarasota, housing is generally hosted at the Steinwachs Artist Residences operated by Sarasota Opera. See images below.
The curriculum involves a combination of practicums (generally in the form of performances or presentations to the public), resident community discussions and seminars, and private study (in the form of lessons or studio classes). SFP takes place as a traveling festival and residency throughout the year both during the regular and summer seasons, giving both faculty and student residents an opportunity to experiment and test projects with different audience responses throughout the year.
