The Hnatyshyn Foundation Gerda Hnatyshyn Launch Grants are designed to provide assistance to the most promising Canadian performing artists in the years immediately following their education or training in the performing arts. One grant of $10,000 will be awarded to support projects in each of the following disciplines: Classical Music , Contemporary Music, Contemporary Dance, English Theatre, and French Theatre.

The inaugural grants will be awarded in 2025. Nominations will open in the fall of 2024.

Julianna Bryson, 2023 Developing Artist Grant laureate in Contemporary Dance. Naomi Caulfield Photography.

Presented with the support of The Hnatyshyn Foundation, DARC’s Indigenous Residency is a one-month intensive on-site artist residency, offered to mid-career Indigenous (First Nations, Inuit, and Métis) artists in the Ottawa-Gatineau region who are seeking to develop their current practice, experiment with a new medium, or continue an existing project.

The Foundation recognizes excellence in the arts in Canada by awarding prizes to mid-career artists and curators.

The Hnatyshyn Foundation Mid-Career Award for Excellence in Visual Arts, of $30,000, is awarded annually to a Canadian mid-career artist who has demonstrated excellence and innovation in their body of work and who shows promise of outstanding artistic achievement in the years ahead.

The Hnatyshyn Foundation Mid-Career Award for Curatorial Excellence, of $20,000, is awarded to a Canadian mid-career curator of contemporary visual art in recognition of their contribution to the advancement of the contemporary visual arts in Canada.

Kent Monkman, Resurgence of the People, 2019. Acrylic on canvas, 132” x 264”. Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Monkman was the laureate of the 2014 Hnatyshyn Foundation Mid-Career Award for Excellence in Visual Arts and a laureate of the 2017 Hnatyshyn Foundation REVEAL Awards for Indigenous Artists.

The William and Meredith Saunderson (formerly Charles Pachter) Prizes for Emerging Artists consist of three awards, of $10,000 each, to support young emerging visual artists whose practices show potential and who are deemed to have the determination and talent to contribute to the legacy of art in Canada.

Marlon Kroll, 2020 laureate of a William and Meredith Saunderson Prize for Emerging Artists. Installation shot, Sunrise it Crystallize at Parisian Laundry, Montreal

Established in 2024 thanks to the generous support of Lynda Hamilton, The Hnatyshyn Foundation – Joysanne Sidimus Ballet Grant provides assistance to the most promising young Canadian ballet dancers entering the final or penultimate year of a qualified post-secondary educational program, professional training program, or apprenticeship program in ballet, who intend to pursue a career in ballet.

Jeremy Blanton with Joysanne Sidimus. Photo by Amleto Lorenzini. Courtesy of The National Ballet of Canada

The Hnatyshyn Foundation – Fogo Island Arts Young Curator Residency provides an opportunity for a young Canadian curator to work in residence at Fogo Island Arts, a contemporary arts venue in Newfoundland, for six weeks.

During the residency, the successful candidate will work closely with Fogo Island Arts staff and international artists-in-residence, and provide a presentation to the community. The candidate will also be given an opportunity to contribute to exhibitions and publications curated by Fogo Island Arts.

View from Fogo Island, Newfoundland. Courtesy of Fogo Island Arts

This program, inaugurated in 2022, consists of a $10,000 scholarship to recognize the academic achievement of an Indigenous undergraduate student in drama studying in the University of Saskatchewan’s wîcêhtowin Theatre program.

The wîcêhtowin Theatre program is a transformative certificate program in performance and theatre design. This comprehensive and experience-based learning approach for emerging First Nations, Métis, and Inuit actors, playwrights and designers—as well as students interested in an Indigenous perspective—delivers meaningful and principled skills in the areas of performance and technical theatre design.

Leze Pewapsconias, 2022 laureate, performing in Concord Floral by Jordan Tannahil, directed by Nathasha Martina at the Greystone Theatre (University of Saskatchewan, 2021)

The Decker family and the Hnatyshyn Foundation, in collaboration with the Schulich School of Music, created the Fellowship for young conductors to honour the late conductor Franz-Paul Decker and his wife Christa, who both made a significant impact on the musical landscape in Canada and around the world.

Kelly Lin, 2020 Young Conductor’s Fellowship laureate, performs with her orchestra in Vancouver, 2023. Photo: Thomas Ayouti