In May 2025, our microgrant goes to Vanessa Reynolds, a self-taught musician and interdisciplinary artist born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. Their work is equally at home on music streaming platforms as it is in contemporary art museums. In addition to a recent focus on creating video art, they produce music under the moniker Venusloc and as one half of the alternative duo VRLG (Very Large). Both practices draw inspiration from over ten years of being the guitarist and lead vocalist of avant-garde trio River Spirit.

In 2020, Reynolds began utilizing their music production skills to score their short films and won them a grant from The Detroit Narrative Agency. Since then, their work has been exhibited at Riverbank Arts at the University of Michigan, Scribe Video Center, Midway Fair, and in publications including Dublab, Mixmag, and YMA. 

In 2023, they released their first solo single, SUPERMASSIVE, and were awarded the Kresge Artist Fellowship for their video art. They then recorded and co-produced VRLG’s self-titled debut EP, which released in the fall of 2024. Their audio/visual short film, F.Y.G., is currently being exhibited as a part of Code Switch: Distributing Blackness, Reprogramming Video Art, a group show co-curated by The Kitchen in New York City and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit. Vanessa is currently recording new music and living as a working artist.

Gizem Oruç is a Berlin-based multi-instrumentalist, producer, DJ, technology professional, and community organizer. With master’s degrees in both chemistry and sonic arts, they blend scientific precision with creative exploration, producing music that transcends genre and tradition. Their work spans three continents and many collaborative projects. 

Currently producing and DJing as 6zm, they also play in the bands Schnieke and Nilipek., and have performed across genres at renowned venues and festivals in Germany, Turkey, the US, and France.

Their works have been featured in exhibitions including Documenta 14, Contemporary Istanbul, and ZKM, and their sounds have reached audiences through films as well as live performances at the Istanbul Pride, SXSW, Volksbühne, Waves, and more.

Gizem is actively involved in queer, trans, feminist, and BIPOC communities—they have contributed to various non-profit projects including the queer feminist collective venue Oya Bar in Kreuzberg, Berlin.

The microgrant for March 2025 went to Elie Gregory—a composer, producer, and sound artist with roots in Brighton (UK) and Berlin, and an educational background in composition and electroacoustic music. Their work spans from glitchy and abstract multichannel electroacoustic pieces and live electronics to electronica and synthpop.

Released under the moniker ‘Strip Down’, the album Remakings documents their changing voice through means of a duet recorded at different stages of their life. In most recent years their focus has been on collaborating with queer and feminist artists in theatre, performance and choreography to create a space between music and sound, as well as co-producing and remixing songs.

Elie Gregory usually engages synthesizers and manipulates field recordings, so we are intrigued to see in which direction the libraries from Orchestral Tools could take them.

The OT microgrant for February 2025 went to Jordan Deal, a Philadelphia-based multidisciplinary artist and alchemist.

Defying convention and categorization across a variety of mediums, Jordan’s work explores, disassembles, and reinvents narratives of power and resistance.

Musically, their work tackles heavy themes through an intricately woven blend of soundscapes, field recordings, and folk traditions, embracing chaos as both material and method. 

They were a 2023-2024 Artistic Fellow at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, a Fall 2022 research fellow at the Amant Foundation, and were most recently invited to Berlin to perform at the CTM Festival—a platform for adventurous music and art. 

We are thrilled to support Jordan and share their fascinating work with the world.

Our first recipient, Célyne Baudino, is a multitasking music queer creature who creates music for film, live performance, and classic contemporary music. 

As a composer, they seek to bring together all kinds of textures, merging vocal, acoustic, and electronic sounds into a complex sonic world.

In 2024, with work on numerous short films and animation, Célyne was nominated for the Cannes Festival Sync Awards and also scored for Kill the Horse, which won Best Animated Short film at the 2024 Shanghai Film Festival.

More recently, Célyne has been collaborating with Éditions A.CHAVE to compose the original music for a major 7-episode documentary series produced by Feliz Films in Paris.

We are thrilled to support Célyne and share their incredible work with the world.