Faculty and alumni of the UI School of Music made a strong showing at the annual conference of the Society for American Music in Sacramento this March. At the conference’s opening session, assistant professor Nathan Platte presented new historical findings on the “Tara” theme from Gone With the Wind. Later in the conference, recent 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 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 alum 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.