Congratulations to IU Professor of Musicology Halina Goldberg, who has just won the 2021 H. Colin Slim Award from the American Musicological Society. Her award-winning article, titled “Chopin’s Album Leaves and the Aesthetics of Musical Album Inscription,” was published earlier this year in the Journal of the American Musicological Society.
Each year, the H. Colin Slim Award honors a musicological article of “exceptional merit” that is published during the previous year. The award committee chooses a single winner from nominations in any language and from any country, as long as they are a member of AMS or a citizen or permanent resident of Canada or the United States.
From the AMS awards page: Tapping a previously unexplored and extensive primary source base that was ephemeral and had been feminized, the author of this article convincingly builds an argument that takes the reader from small moments of interpersonal interaction to the overarching theme of national identity. Centering her exploration on musical album inscriptions in the musical world of the Polish composer, Frédéric Chopin, the author establishes networks of interpersonal exchange around these albums that connected composers, patrons, and consumers. Paying scrupulous attention to details, her rich referential matrix situates Chopin’s album inscriptions in a cosmopolitan habitus, shedding new light on their musical meaning and the stylistic genres from which they are derived, all conditioned by gift-exchange etiquette. The research is impressive and offers a multi-disciplinary critical framework, reflecting the author’s deep knowledge of musical repertoire, long engagement with archival sources, reading across a large and multidisciplinary secondary source base, and careful interpretation.
Congratulations, Halina! Such a distinguished honor!
Brava Halina!!!! We are so very fortunate to have you at JSOM.