Mark Tucker Award for an Outstanding Student Conference Paper

Committee Members: Lisa Barg (McGill University), chair, Steven Baur (Dalhousie University), Tammy Kernodle (Miami University of Ohio), and Charles Hiroshi Garrett (University of Michigan)

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. The members of this year's committee are: Lisa Barg, chair, David Ake, Elizabeth Keathley, and Nancy Rao.

Students who will be presenting papers at the Chicago, Illinois conference and who wish to compete for the 2006 Mark Tucker Award should send four copies of the conference paper, along with four copies of any accompanying audio or visual material, postmarked no later than February 1, 2006.

Submissions should be sent to Lisa Barg, either electronically (lisa.barg@mcgill.ca), or to the following address:

McGill University
Faculty of Music
555, rue Sherbrooke ouest
Montreal, QC H3A 1E3
CANADA

List of previous Mark Tucker Award winners