Taking place this year from May 04–July 17, 2026, the Venus Fest Mentorship Program is a Toronto-based program for musicians and music workers of underrepresented identities/genders.
Deadline to apply is April 2, 2026 at 11:59 PM EST
Participants Receive
-
- 4 hours of one-on-one online mentorship sessions with 1 mentor
- 2 in-person symposium days on May 13 and 14, 2026 in Toronto, ON
- 2 social program events
- an invitation to attend events at Debaser’s Pique/Topique on June 12 and 13, 2026 in Ottawa, ON (travel and accommodation subsidy provided by Venus Fest)
- an honorarium of $500
We will provide ASL interpretation support for Deaf/Hard of Hearing participants for all program components, as well as other access support tailored to participant access needs.
Venus Fest’s Mentorship Program is geared towards musicians and music workers of underrepresented identities/genders. Within this, we especially encourage applications from artists/arts workers who are QT/BIPOC, otherwise equity-seeking, or have lacked previous institutional support for their current professional goals.
We have multiple placements reserved for transfemme, Black, Indigenous, and/or Deaf/Hard of Hearing participants.
Applications are open to anyone living in ‘Canada’, but participants are asked to attend as many of the in-person components as possible; we encourage applications from people who are either based in the GTA or who can reasonably travel to Toronto to attend the in-person components. If you need to attend virtually for accessibility reasons, please let us know and we can accommodate this for you.
If you prefer to submit your application as a video or audio file, or have other questions related to accessibility for this application process, please email our Mentorship Program Coordinator Beau:Â beau@venusfest.net
Click here to learn more and apply.