The North American British Music Studies Association

The North American British Music Studies Association

Biennial Diana McVeagh Prize for Best Book on British Music

The North American British Music Studies Association (NABMSA) announces the creation of the biennial Diana McVeagh Prize for Best Book on British Music. The prize is named in honor of pioneering British music writer, Diana McVeagh, who is the author of books on and musical editions of British composers Edward Elgar and Gerald Finzi, among others. Her books are known for their insightful interpretations of music and its context, and the lyrical quality of her prose.

The first Diana McVeagh Prize will be awarded in November of 2013. Any book on British music – including monographs, books within a series, eBooks, or collections of essays (if all of the essays within are centered on the study of British music) are eligible for consideration for the Prize. To be considered for the Diana McVeagh Prize, Candidates must be members of NABMSA in good standing for the prize year (2013), and must submit a copy of the book to be considered postmarked by no later than July 1, 2013, to the Secretary of NABMSA at the following address:

Prof. Nathaniel G. Lew, Secretary
North American British Music Studies Association
c/o Department of Fine Arts
Saint Michael’s College
One Winooski Park, Box 377
Colchester VT 05439

The winner of the Prize will be announced at the 2013 Business Meeting of NABMSA to be held in Pittsburgh, PA in November of 2013.

The 2010 NABMSA conference in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, held from 26 to 29 July, has just concluded. Excellent papers facilities made the event a pleasure to attend. The conference, entitled “Anglo-American Connections” also celebrated the 80th birthday of Prof. Nicholas Temperley of the University of Illinois, who served as NABMSA’s first President, and closed with a gala concert featuring music related to Dr Temperley’s scholarly work as well as music that connected the UK and the US in different ways. The conference program is still available on the Conferences page.

NABMSA is pleased to announce that the winner of the biennial Temperley prize for the best student paper at the Fifth Biennial Conference in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois is Erica Siegel. Siegel, a graduate student at the University of California, Riverside, presented a paper entitled “‘I’m not making this up, you know!’: The success of Vaughan Williams’s students in America”. The prize committee was pleased to select Siegel’s work from a particularly fine slate of student papers at this year’s conference. Congratulations to Ms. Siegel!

The Greater New York Chapter of the AMS and the North American British Music Studies Association are soliciting proposals for their upcoming joint meeting, which will take place on Saturday, April 28th, at Hunter College in Manhattan. Presentations on all aspects of British music are sought. Submit 300 word proposals by March 1st by sending copies to the following four e mail addresses: samanthaebp@gmail.com, Jennifer.Oates@qc.cuny.edu, jonathan.waxman@gmail.com, DrJSDailey@aol.com.

NABMSA’s fifth conference will once again bring together scholars and lovers of British music from various academic fields and locales for three days of papers, discussions, and musical performances. The 2012 conference will take place from July 25-28 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The theme of the conference is Anglo-American music and musical relationships, and we are especially interested in papers that explore these connections, such as those on British brass bands in America, British-American folk traditions, and other transatlantic collaborations and influences. We also welcome papers on any topic related to British music and musical life, in all geographical regions of Britain, the Empire, and beyond Britain. Papers that draw upon interdisciplinary or broader cultural contexts are particularly welcome, as are papers on figures or works celebrating important anniversary years in 2012 (e.g., Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Frederick Delius, Tippett’s King Priam). We also encourage graduate students to submit papers; the best student paper presented at the NABMSA conference will be awarded the Temperley Prize.