UI faculty, alumni win awards, present work at Society for American Music annual conference

Friday, March 13, 2015

Faculty and alumni of the School of Music in the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts & Sciences made a strong showing at the annual conference of the Society for American Music, held March 4-8 in Sacramento, California. At the conference’s opening session, School of Music Assistant Professor Nathan Platte presented new historical findings on the “Tara” theme from Gone With the Wind. Alumna Katheryn Lawson (MA, Musicology, 2013) hosted a discussion panel titled “Childhood and American Music.” Alumnus Michael Accinno (MA, Musicology, 2010) presented a paper on musical activity at the Perkins School for the Blind in the nineteenth century.

UI faculty and alums also collected multiple awards. Associate Professor of Music Marian Wilson Kimber won an H. Earle Johnson Publication Subvention for her forthcoming book, Feminine Entertainments: Women, Music, and the Spoken Word. Associate Professor Robert C. Cook received an Honorable Mention in the Irving Lowens “Best Article” category for “The Vocal Ecology of Crumb’s Crickets,” published in the Journal of the Society for American Music.

At a special ceremony that featured a performance of his Piano Trio, UI alumnus Olly Wilson (Ph.D., Composition, 1964) received an Honorary Membership Award from the Society for his “inestimable contributions to American musical culture through his compositions, his teaching, and his championing of African-American music.”

"We are proud of these many recognitions, which affirm the School of Music’s broader commitment to scholarly and artistic engagement with American music," said Platte.

The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences offers about 70 majors across the humanities; fine, performing and literary arts; natural and mathematical sciences; social and behavioral sciences; and communication disciplines. About 15,000 undergraduate and nearly 2,000 graduate students study each year in the college’s 37 departments, led by faculty at the forefront of teaching and research in their disciplines. The college teaches all Iowa undergraduates through the college's general education program, CLAS CORE. About 80 percent of all Iowa undergraduates begin their academic journey in CLAS. The college confers about 60 percent of the university's bachelor's degrees each academic year.