Each year up to £19,000 in grants are shared between four to five projects for concerts, tours, recordings and education work deemed to be doing most to advance and promote the understanding of music by women.

Details of how to apply can be found here: https://abo.org.uk/what-we-do/developing/sirens. Applications are welcome until the leap year deadline of 29 February 2024.

In 2023, funds were awarded to ten orchestras – Academy of Ancient Music, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Chineke!, City of London Sinfonia, Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia/The Glasshouse International Centre for Music and Ulster Orchestra. The composers championed through these grant-winning organisations include Avril Coleridge-Taylor, Clara Schumann, Florence B. Price, Grace Williams, Ina Boyle, Lili Boulanger, Louise Farrenc, Maria Teresa Agnesi, Marianna Martinez, Mel Bonis and Ruth Gipps.

Diana Ambache, author, pianist, musicologist and generous supporter of the Sirens fund, said:
“It is pleasing to go to a concert with more women composers than men; Sirens has encouraged programmers to wider, more unusual thinking, which is more engaging.”

The Sirens Fund was launched in 2016 and has since supported hundreds of works.

The 2023 grant recipient works are being performed from June 2023 through to Spring 2024.