Recipient Information
Location
Nashville, Tennessee
Project Title
Here, There, and Everywhere: 1+1 with Female Jazz Instrumentalist Band Leaders
Year of Award
2025
Grant or Fellowship
Jazz Road Creative Residencies Grant
Grant Amount
$39,915
Between July and October 2025, the artist will travel to NOLA, NYC, and the Midwest to interview and improvise with 18 female jazz bandleaders and produce podcast episodes for her company, "Brave Musician", and create a compilation CD from the recorded collaborations.
About the Artist
Monica Shriver is a Nashville-based saxophonist, composer, bandleader, educator, visual artist, graphic designer, writer, and co-founder of Brave Musician®. She is dedicated to exploring the connections between composition, improvisation, visual art, and writing in compelling and innovative ways. Shriver’s artistic expression embraces imagination, vulnerability, generosity, collaboration, storytelling, reciprocity, and is deeply inspired by individual and collective human experiences. Her intensity, creativity, and openness is evident in the music she writes, the art she creates, and the authenticity she shows as a performer. Monica’s musical expression is full of intense joy, love, adventure, humor, loss, and deep sensitivity.
Brave Musician® is a movement of courage and empowerment for all musicians – with resources for creative confidence, artistic and personal development plus a strong community of other Brave musicians. The Brave Musician podcast, hosted and produced by Monica, has aired 69 episodes since it began in 2019 and guests from the jazz field have included Tia Fuller, Rachel Eckroth, Alex Sipiagin, Joel Frahm, and Sara Caswell.
The Monica Shriver Quartet (MSQ) is an experimental jazz ensemble led by Monica Shriver, featuring original compositions, arranged standards, and spontaneous improvisations. Collaboration, intention, trust, and connection are key elements as the ensemble draws heavily on experimental and improvisatory musical forms and settings.
The Monica Shriver Quartet has released two albums, ‘Acceptance’ (2023) and ‘Unfolding’ (2024). 'Acceptance' features her original compositions plus arrangements of “Lonely Woman” (Ornette Coleman) and “Love is Everywhere” (Pharoah Sanders) and was nominated for "Best Jazz Album" by NIMA (National Industry Music Awards). 'Unfolding' features her original compositions as well as compositions by bandmates Matt Endahl and Rahsaan Barber, and arrangements of "Blue Nile" (Alice Coltrane), "Spank" (Cindy Blackman-Santana) and "Nature Boy" (Eden Ahbez). Both albums feature Monica's original abstract paintings as the cover art. The Monica Shriver Quartet performed as a featured ensemble at the Alabama Women in Jazz Festival in 2023 and continues to perform at venues throughout the country.
Monica is a Chamber Music America 2023 Performance Plus Grantee and a Spring 2023 South Arts Jazz Road Artist.