Book Award
Irving Lowens Book Award
Irving Lowens' research and writing in American music not only form a cornerstone for American music history, but also are largely responsible for making the study of American music a respected and thriving area in musicology today. As the principal founder of the Sonneck Society (now the Society for American Music) and its first president from 1974 to 1981, Irving Lowens has often been regarded as the guiding spirit for the Society. During his remarkable career he became distinguished in music criticism, musicology, and music librarianship. In his positions as music critic for the Washington Star (1953-1977), music reference librarian at the Library of Congress (1962-1966), and as Dean at the Peabody Conservatory of Music (1977-1982), he served in turn the public, the scholar, and the music student. The Irving Lowens Book Award commemorates this remarkable man and his contributions to the study of American music.
This award consists of a plaque and cash award given annually for a book that makes an outstanding contribution to American music studies.
Book Award Application Information
Previous Lowens Book Award Winners
| Publication Year | Winner |
|---|---|
| 2011 | Sabine Feisst, Schoenberg’s New World: The American Year,s Oxford University Press, 2011. Honorable mention: Larry Hamberlin, Tin Pan Opera: Operatic Novelty Songs in the Ragtime Era (Oxford) |
| 2010 | Larry Stempel, Showtime: A History of the Broadway Musical Theater |
| 2009 | John Koegel, Music in German Immigrant Theater: New York City, 1840-1940 |
| 2008 | Charles Hiroshi Garrett, Struggling to Define a Nation: American Music and the Twentieth Century |
| 2007 | Michael Broyles and Denise Von Glahn, Leo Ornstein: Modernist Dilemmas, Personal Choices |
| 2006 | Anne Danielsen, Presence and Pleasure: The Funk Grooves of James Brown and Parliament |
| 2005 | Jeffrey Magee, The Uncrowned King of Swing: Fletcher Henderson and Big Band Jazz |
| 2004 | Tim Brooks, Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry 1890-1919 |
| 2003 | Gage Averill, Four Parts, No Waiting: A Social History of American Barbershop Harmony |
| 2002 | Walter van de Leur, Something to Live For: The Music of Billy Strayhorn |
| 2001 | Richard Crawford, America's Musical Life: A History |
| 2000 | Carol Oja, Making Music Modern: New York in the 1920s |
| 1999 | Howard Pollack, Aaron Copland: The Life and Work of an Uncommon Man |
| 1998 | Adrienne Fried Block, Amy Beach, Passionate Victorian |
| 1997 | Judith Tick, Ruth Crawford Seeger; A Composer's Search for American Music |
| 1996 | Ingrid Monson, Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation and Interaction |
| 1995 | S. Frederick Starr, Bamboula! The Life and Times of Louis Moreau Gottschalk |
| 1994 | Joseph Horowitz, Wagner Nights : An American History |
| 1993 | Robert Walser, Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music |
| 1993 | Ronald Radano, New Musical Figurations: Anthony Braxton's Cultural Critique |
| 1993 | Stephen Banfield, Sondheim's Broadway Musicals |
| 1992 | Stuart Feder, Charles Ives, "My Father's Song": A Psychoanalytical Biography |
| 1991 | Susan Porter, With an Air Debonair: Musical Theatre in America |
| 1990 | Samuel A. Floyd, Jr., Black Music in the Harlem Renaissance |
| 1989 | Dale Cockrell, Excelsior: Journals of the Hutchinson Family Singers |
| 1989 | Vivian Perlis, Copland: Since 1943 |
| 1988 | Russell Sanjek, American Popular Music and Its Business |
| 1987 | D.W. Krummel, Bibliographical Handbook of American Music |
| 1986 | Gunther Schuller, Musings: The Musical Worlds of Gunther Schuller |
| 1985 | J. Peter Burkholder, Charles Ives: The Ideas Behind the Music |
| 1984 | Richard Crawford, Core Repertory of Early American Psalmody |
| 1983 | Charles Hamm, Music in the New World |