2009 Mark Tucker Award for an Outstanding Student Conference Paper

Committee Members: Theo Cateforis (Syracuse University), chair; Dale Chapman (Bates College), Tammy Kernodle (Miami University of Ohio), Peter Mercer-Taylor (University of Minnesota), Annie Randall (Bucknell University).


Mark Tucker, Vice President of the Society for American Music at the time of his death in December, 2000, is known to most SAM members as a leading jazz scholar. His Ellington: The Early Years and The Duke Ellington Reader are landmarks in Ellington scholarship and models of musical biography. But Mark was deeply interested in many aspects of American music besides jazz. He wrote papers, participated in performances, and published pieces dealing with topics as diverse as Charles Ives's love of the Adirondacks, 19th-century parlor song, the compositions of Alec Wilder, the musical plays of Braham, Harrigan, and Hart, and hip-hop.

Recognizing Mark's gift for nurturing and inspiring his own students and the high value he placed on skillful and communicative scholarly writing, and wishing to honor his memory, the Board of the Society for American Music has established the Mark Tucker Award, to be presented at the Business Meeting of the annual SAM conference to a student who has written an outstanding paper for delivery at that conference. The recipient of the award, which consists of a modest amount of cash and a more significant amount of recognition, will be decided before the conference by a committee appointed annually.

Students who will be reading individual papers or presenting a poster are eligible for the Mark Tucker Award. It is asked that all those who wish to be considered for the award submit their materials following the same guidelines: a research paper that fits within the time slot of the conference's twenty-minute individual paper presentation limit (approximately ten double-spaced pages). Those who wish to compete for the 2009 conference in Denver, Colorado should send their paper along with any accompanying audio or visual material, in electronic format to Theo Cateforis no later than January 15, 2009.

List of previous Mark Tucker Award winners