By Olga Smola, Executive Director – osmola@NebraskaMusicFest.org
When Art is No Longer Welcome
Saturday was to be one of the proudest days of 2025 for our small and dedicated team here at the Nebraska Crossroads Music Festival. We had just finalized our 6th season’s announcement – twelve vibrant, free events across Omaha and Lincoln, bringing together global artists, local voices and families from across our community.
Instead, on Friday night, we received a cold and crushing message. Our grant from the National Endowment for the Arts — a $40,000 award that made up a significant part of our budget — had been terminated.
The reason?
“Your project no longer effectuates agency priorities.”
This phrase — bureaucratic, vague, and chilling — hit me like a cold wind from my Soviet past.
I’ve Heard This Before
Growing up in Russia, I studied the history of censorship under Stalin — how music, literature, and the arts were tightly controlled to serve the ideological goals of the state. After Stalin’s death, the repression lessened but never disappeared. Censorship continued for decades, silencing writers like Solzhenitsyn and countless others whose work didn’t align with official ideology.
It wasn’t until the collapse of the Soviet Union that we were finally able to study this history more openly — the way entire creative lives were erased, and how culture was shaped by the demand to conform. We learned how easily art could be used — or regulated — as a tool of power.
That’s what makes this termination of our grant feel eerily familiar: anonymous reporting systems at universities, repression of discourse, and the withdrawal of government support for artistic work that doesn’t align with newly invented “priorities.”
It is the same logic used to censor art in the Soviet Union during Stalin’s regime:
“Art must serve the state. It must follow the correct ideology.”
I’ve lived in the U.S. under both Republican and Democratic administrations. What I observe now is not the actions of one party or another, but a broader cultural shift — where political extremes gain traction, where thoughtful dialogue and the freedom of expression are subjugated to the whim of political persuasion.
In this environment, in this case, community-rooted art got pushed aside — not based on merit, but because it doesn’t effectuate government priorities and because it lacks a lobby to defend it.
Our Festival Is Not Political
We don’t take sides. We don’t care about, much less advocate for parties or platforms. We celebrate music, poetry, and culture. We bring together people of all backgrounds to share something human — something emotive and uplifting.
We are a tiny, thriving organization. Over five seasons, we’ve produced nearly 70 events — and this year, we’re adding 12 more, all free to the public. We impact the local economy, we serve children and families, and we help Nebraska shine.
How can this not be a priority for an agency that has such a history of being faithful to the arts? The unfortunate truth is that politics has infused our space, a space that needs freedom to flourish.
So Where Do We Go From Here?
Losing the NEA grant is a painful financial hit. But more than that, it raises a deeper concern: when funding decisions reflect the priorities of a single office rather than the voices of communities, where does that leave the arts?
It means we will work harder, find new partners and will continue serving our community — because this music, this poetry, this connection we foster matters more than ever.
We believe in creative freedom, community access, and the right for art to exist without approval or permission.
If you do too, and you are able to, we invite you to help us keep this season alive.
👉 nebraskamusicfest.org/donate
Your support means more than ever.
We’re still here. We’ll keep playing.
We’ll continue to build bridges in Nebraska — through the power of art.
And we’ll keep creating something beautiful — and free — together.
— Olga Smola
Executive Director, Nebraska Crossroads Music Festival
8 Responses
Olga: I just got this message from John. This is the path Trump‘s wants to lead us down. his birthday military parade is gonna cost taxpayers 92 million I will donate to Crossroads.
Dear Rich,
thank you so much for your comment and thank you so much for your support. We love having John at the Festival and we’re so glad that you’ve been able to travel to Nebraska and see the shows (and him) during the summer. We will keep on going – this is not going to stop us!
Idiotic attacks on the NEA and the arts have taken place for decades but given the wider context of what’s now happening in the United States, this is different and truly alarming. It’s sad to see the crushing effects of this new reality all over the country, including on my hometown and state.
Mike, thank you so much for your comments. It is always alarming when the government tries to control art and doesn’t allow it to serve its function as a mirror to society. Let’s hope this is a wake up call for us to re-appreciate the things we cherish and advocate for them. Thank you!
Chilling. Thank you so much for sharing, Olga.
Thank you, Melissa!
The simple fact is that you’ve been in bed with ‘the government’ since Day One.
When you suckle from the government teat, sometimes you get sour milk.
Priorities change. Presidents change. The People change. Freedom is scary.
Thank you for your comment. Your words carry strong convictions and deep frustration, which I hear and acknowledge. I hope you’ll consider coming to experience what the festival has to offer – it’s created for everyone, and that includes you.
It may appear that our organization has received regular government support, but in reality, this NEA grant would have been our first federal grant in the six years we’ve existed. It would have represented about 1/8th of the festival budget.
How NEA Project Grants Work:
NEA Project Grants are rare and highly competitive. You can think of them as a kind of national “arts championship” — a multi-stage process that involves:
– A 15-page application and extensive video/audio documentation
– Review by panels of artists, arts leaders, and laypeople from across the U.S.
– Final evaluation by the National Council on the Arts (whose members are appointed by the President)
– A final decision made by the NEA Chair
What makes this process remarkable is not the financial award — which is modest — but the rigor and recognition it represents. Receiving an NEA grant is a hard-won endorsement of artistic merit and public value.
A Broader Question: Should Government Fund the Arts?
That’s a legitimate and ongoing debate. One reason public funding matters is that it’s designed to be open to all. Unlike private foundations — which may strive for this kind of openness, but in practice, rely more heavily on personal relationships and connections — NEA panels rotate regularly, and the conflict-of-interest rules are strict. Ironically, the skepticism about public spending has led to one of the most transparent, accountable funding systems there is.
For small, community-rooted organizations like ours, this gives us a rare opportunity to compete on the strength of our ideas. To me, nothing embodies the spirit of freedom more than innovation and open competition — which is what this process enables. I hope one day you’ll see that in our work too.