Residencies

Group photo of the Town Hall staff standing against a white wall

About Town Hall Residencies

Each season, Town Hall’s Residency program offers local Artists or Scholars a paid opportunity to nourish their creative disciplines and engage with Town Hall programs and collaborate with our programming team to develop original events for the community. This opportunity is open to scholars, journalists (SiR) or visual artists and performing artists (AiR) working in Seattle, King County, and/or the Puget Sound region. Scholars- or Artists-in-Residence bring fresh voices to our programming and expand our perspectives about what happens on Town Hall’s stages.

Meet our 2025 Spring Artist-in-Residence, Jahnvi Madan

Jahnvi Madan is an upcoming clarinetist/composer from Bellevue, recently named Earshot Jazz Festival’s Northwest Emerging Artist of the Year. A New England Conservatory graduate who grew up performing around Seattle’s Jazz scene, she has performed her music at prestigious festivals including the D.C. Women in Jazz Festival, Seattle’s Westerlies Fest, and the Earshot Jazz Festival – as the youngest composer they have commissioned. Madan is passionate about bringing more attention and love towards Seattle’s jazz scene, both in terms of uncovering its rich history as well as shining light on the current artistry around town. She is interested in using her art to navigate themes of identity through a lens of resilience, thus paving new pathways while paying homage to the spirit of Jazz.

You can read more about Jahnvi Madan on the Town Hall Blog.

Bailey Ambrose Heller (with fair skin/short blonde hair) poses outdoors and smiles with his arm around a blue robot.
Get Tickets to "Findings Night"

Application

Now Accepting Applicants for Town Hall’s Fall 2025 Residency 

Every year, Town Hall selects exceptional local artists and scholars for paid Residencies where they engage with Town Hall programs and collaborate with our programming team to develop original events for the community.

This opportunity is open to artists and performers of any discipline, journalists, researchers, and other specialists working in Seattle, King County, and/or the Puget Sound region. Some past Town Hall Residents include Shaina Shepherd, Tomo Nakayama, Gretchen Yanover, Timothy White Eagle, Elisa Chavez, Juan Alonso-Rodriguez, Marcus Harrison Green, Brangien Davis, Sally James, Hanna Brooks Olsen, Bailey Ambrose Heller, and Maia Brown.

Apply Today!

Commitment

The Residency will take place from September to mid-December of 2025.

The Resident will curate and produce two live public programs: 1) A “Scratch Night” event in October that shares work-in-progress and 2) A “Findings Night” event in December during which the scholar or artist shares the culmination of their work during the Residency.

The Resident will regularly meet with relevant Town Hall staff to provide updates on the progress of the residency and will collaborate with Town Hall to promote the residency through relevant channels.

The Resident will be encouraged to attend Town Hall events, contribute to audience engagement, and contribute to the life of our community through activities like writing for the Town Hall blog, hosting a workshop, hosting a pre/post show conversation for a program on our calendar, or introducing a speaker on stage.

Stipend and Benefits

The Resident will receive a stipend of $3,000, as well as access to Town Hall’s facilities and events for the duration of the Residency. In addition, Town Hall will reimburse up to $1,000 of itemized project materials, artist fees, and/or production costs for all activities over the term of the residency.

Past Residents

Town Hall’s Residency Program was launched in 2012, and we’re grateful to every resident who has spent time on our stages. Our Archive is a work in progress; check back soon for updates!

Bailey Ambrose Heller (with fair skin/short blonde hair) poses outdoors and smiles with his arm around a blue robot.

Bailey Ambrose Heller is a mechatronic artist combining his passion for robotics with the artistic process. He graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and a minor in Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTs). Bailey aims to use technology to reflect aspects of humanity and people’s relationship to automation and Artificial Intelligence.

Bailey Ambrose Heller’s Residency Archive

  • Art in the Machine: A Conversation with Fall 2024 Artist-in-Residence Bailey Ambrose Heller (Blog post, 10/14/25)
  • October 2024 Scratch Night Event with Bailey Ambrose Heller: Meet Filo Girl and LIDAR (Video Recording)
  • January 2025 Findings Night Event with Bailey Ambrose Heller: Watch a Robot Explore the Great Hall Stage (Video Recording)

Maia Brown (with fair skin and long ginger hair) reads the Talmud.

Maia Brown (she/her) is a visual artist, Yiddish musician, writer, translator, and educator. Brown has a background in oral history and fine art, including a Watson Fellowship to study storytelling and advocacy in South Africa and the North of Ireland. She received her Master of Fine Arts in Interdisciplinary Arts at Goddard College. She is a dedicated student and teacher of her own tradition as well as the many ways people have reached out to each other across communities.

Maia has dedicated herself to arts education while also captivating audiences as a Klezmer musician with her band, Brivele, an anti-fascist Yiddish folk ensemble based in Seattle. Through her translation work in Yiddish political song and poetry, as well as Hebrew and Aramaic liturgy, Maia fosters collaboration among poets, scholars, and musicians both locally and internationally. Her belief in the interdisciplinary nature of diasporic living shines through in her artistic endeavors, all aimed at building connections across generations and cultural boundaries. We look forward to the vibrant contributions Maia will bring to Town Hall and the broader community during her residency. 

Maia Brown’s Residency Archive

Known for her pervasive style a soul-grunge frontwoman turned piano songstress, Shaina Shepherd‘s notable vocal stylings have brought her into various creative spaces — from collaborating with Duff McKagan, members Soundgarden, and Heart’s own Nancy Wilson, to sharing stages with rock stars like Modest Mouse, to being a soloist with classical ensembles around the country. Inspired by the parallels between gospel and garbage metal and living in the city where both Pearl Jam and Quincy Jones cut their teeth, Shaina lends her soulful voice to projects of all genres. Her heart songs are steeped in American folk and redefine the Outlaw genre with an infusion of Tina Turner, Betty Davis, and Nina Simone. 

Focus while in Residence: “Dauphine is a collection of art songs I’ve written over the past 8 years all surrounding a character struggling with being a femme minority living in mostly white communities. The project is based solely out of a songbook I have journaled as a place of relief for this particular feeling of ennui correlated directly with the black diaspora. I will bring these songs to life for the first time with an audience, and a live band of experienced jammers and studio musicians, commissioned to solidify a 8-10 track body of work.”

Shaina’s performances during her residency were one-night-only events. To learn more about her work, visit her website.

Sally James is a writer whose curiosity about people has taken her from jails to hospitals to schools to research labs. Once a staff member of daily newspapers, she has been an independent writer on medicine and science for many years. Most recently, she’s reported stories for the South Seattle Emerald, Parentmap, Seattle and Seattle Business magazines, and other outlets. She is the mother of three adult children and lives in Seattle with her husband and a noisy cat. She is a former president of the Northwest Science Writer’s Association, a nonprofit supporting science communication.

Focus while in Residence: In the words of Sally, “The Year 12 project is asking about a pivotal time in a young person’s growth when what’s swirling around us in news, music, or culture may leave a permanent imprint on our identities.

Visit Sally’s website, Seattle Science Writer.

Sally James’ Residency Archive