The North American British Music Studies Association

The North American British Music Studies Association

Diana McVeagh Prize for Best Book on British Music

The North American British Music Studies Association (NABMSA) awards 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.

Eligibility

Submissions

Nominations should be submitted to the committee chair, Christina Fuhrmann (cfuhrman@bw.edu) and the Secretary, Deborah Heckert (deborah.heckert@stonybrook.edu). Please include the author, book title, publisher, and date of publication.

Award Announcement

The winner of the Prize will be announced at the NABMSA Business Meeting held at the AMS annual conference in odd numbered years.

Award Winners

The winner of the 2021 Diana McVeagh prize: Linda Phyllis Austern, Both From the Ears & Mind: Thinking About Music in Early Modern England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020). Honorable mentions: Benjamin Piekut, Henry Cow: the World is a Problem (Duke University Press, 2019) and Amanda Eubanks Winkler, Music, Dance, and Drama in Early Modern English Schools (Cambridge University Press, 2020).

The winner of the 2019 Diana McVeagh prize: Julia Grella O’Connell, Sound, Sin, and Conversion in Victorian England (New York: Routledge, 2018).

The winner of the 2017 Diana McVeagh prize: Christina Fuhrmann, Foreign Opera at the London Playhouses (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).

The winner of the 2015 Diana McVeagh prize: Rebecca Herissone, Musical Creativity in Restoration England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).

The winner of the 2013 Diana McVeagh prize: Christina Baade, Victory through Harmony: The BBC and Popular Music in World War II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).