Independent Music Production Grant 2026
About
Serendipity Arts is excited to present the fourth edition of the Independent Music Production Grant for all independent music creators across different genres to support the process of creating, recording, producing and releasing and/or presenting new music. The grant will be awarded to bands, duos, groups or individual independent musicians with a grant of up to INR 1,50,000.
DURATION
12 months – June 2026 to June 2027
INTAKE
Eligibility
- Applicants must be over 18 years of age.
- Applicants must be independent musicians- not signed by any major music label.
- Applicants must hold an Indian bank account.
Application Details
- The Grant is open to solo artists, bands, duos, and collaborators.
- We will require a project proposal and a project execution plan with timelines.
- Applications must submit details of past work in the form of web links or uploads.
- WIP samples are to be uploaded (if any).
- A detailed budget must be submitted along with the application.
- A completed Application Form must be submitted in order for the proposal to qualify for shortlisting.
Deliverables
- The Awardees, upon the completion of the project, must submit a Project Report.
- An audited Fund Utilization Certificate, as per the format provided, for the total fund granted must be submitted by the Grantees to Serendipity Arts.
- Serendipity Arts shall connect the Grantee to field experts, mentors, practitioners, and other professionals from the SAF universe, to aid in expanding the scope of the chosen project based on requirement.
Timeline
- The proposed project must be music which has not been released in the public domain except for project proposals which involve presenting music, for instance, for creating a music video or executing a tour.
- The Grant must be availed within 12 months of receiving it.
- After selection, the Grantees shall sign a contract with Serendipity Arts to complete the selection process.
- Reports/WIP are to be submitted every month, after receiving the Grant.
- The Grant has to produce a tangible outcome by the end of the 12-month period from the date of receiving the Grant.
- The Grant will be given out in three installments: 1st on signing the agreement, 2nd and 3rd on submitting reports and utilization certificates after every quarter.
- The Grant amount will be subject to 10% TDS deduction and GST deduction (if the applicant holds a GST-registered account).
- Due credits are to be given to Serendipity Arts, wherever the Grant project is presented or released.
FAQs
- I have already released my album and want to use this Grant for planning a tour or performance, am I eligible?
Yes, the Grant can be used for planning the tour or performance.
- Can I apply if I have an Indian bank account but if I don’t reside in India currently?
Yes, if it is a group/duo applying, then at least one member must have an Indian bank account.
- Is this Grant only for producing/presenting original compositions?
No, not necessarily. It is open for all genres and forms of music/compositions. However, you shall be responsible for acquiring IPRS/PPL licenses, approvals and any other licenses and permissions with regard to the content you present. - Am I eligible to apply if I have no formal training in music?
Yes, absolutely!
- I am a musician, but can I use the grant to collaborate with a visual artist for a series of performances?
Yes, these details must be mentioned in the project proposal and budget break-up if finances are applicable.
- I cannot access the application form. How can I apply?
If you are unable to access the application form, please write to [email protected]. Please make sure to add the name of the grant clearly as the subject line.
A Glimpse into Last Year’s Winners: The journey of Chirag Todi
The project supported through the Serendipity Arts Independent Music Production Grant last year emerged from the evolving musical journey of Mumbai-based artist Chirag Todi. His work moves between pop and jazz, but it does not begin in genres. It begins in listening — in fragments of melodies, rehearsals with collaborators, late-night recordings, and long periods of returning to the same sound until it reveals something new.
Before the grant, his music had already travelled widely. Two album releases and six tours had taken him across cities and stages, including festivals such as Bacardi NH7 Weekender and Lollapalooza India. Each performance carried a moment of completion, yet it was always followed by a return to process. Between shows, the work continued quietly: rewriting arrangements, testing textures in the studio, and allowing songs to change shape over time.
For many independent musicians, this in-between space is the most important and the most difficult to sustain. Touring creates visibility, but it rarely allows the pause needed to explore ideas without a deadline. The grant offered that pause. It allowed Chirag to step briefly outside the cycle of release and performance, and to focus instead on developing material with patience and continuity.
“Hearing is a way of touching at a distance,” wrote Canadian composer and sound theorist R. Murray Schafer, likening the act of listening to an intimate connection that tends to reach across space and makes contact with something beyond ourselves. Sound collapses distance in this way. Its capacity to connect us to other sonic and temporal realities and create relations where none existed, drawing disparate bodies into a single, shared interiority, has long made sound indispensable to collective life.
I found a fly lurking keenly beside Mohit Shelare’s series Kadr, during his solo show Drawing Near at Chemould Prescott Road. Taken by itself, this might seem to be an aberration, a chance accident. The pristine, purportedly sanitised interiors of a white cube gallery are not populated by critters of the scavenging variety, after all. But contextualised through the series itself, as well as the ambit of Shelare’s practice, this becomes one of the most profound moments of artistic intervention, albeit not entirely intentional, that I have encountered in the recent past.
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