The James T. Koetting Prize

Jim Koetting (1939-1984) was a respected ethnomusicologist whose main area of research was African music. He was an Associate Professor at Brown University. This award honors his memory as a distinguished teacher, scholar, musician, and colleague.

2025

Hossein Zangeneh

Tehran University of Art, "Dancing on the Margins: Young Boy Dancers, Gender Performance, and Cultural Desire in Qajar-era Iranian Music Groups"

2024

Winnie W. C. Lai

University of Pennsylvania, "‘Sing with You’: Sonic Activism and the Echoes of New Values in Hong Kong’s Shopping Malls."

2020

Luis Achondo

Brown University, "The Hinchada That Other Hinchadas Listen to: Digital Circulation and Economies of Musical Creativity Among Argentine Soccer Fans”

2019

Byrd McDaniel

Brown University, "Popular Music Reaction Videos: Staging the Body as the Material Site of Music Reception”

2019

Pei-ling Huang

Harvard University, “'Thin Voice, Bud Voice, Female Voice': Material and Discursive Productions of Voice and Voicing in a Sindhi Devotional Community”

2018

Payam Yousefi

Harvard University, “Singing Resistance and Subversion: Feminine Voices Renegotiating Iran’s Public Sphere”

2018

Jason Reid Winikoff (Honorable Mention)

Tufts University, “The Mikakaji: Timbre in Zambian Luvale Percussion”

2017

Rujing Huang

Harvard University, “We’ve Got Harmony, Too!”: Reclaiming Music Theory, Performing Chinese-ness"

2016

Sarah Politz

Harvard University, "Multiple Temporalities in Benin's Brass Bands: A Postcolony's Local Histories of the Global"

2015

Panayotis League

Harvard University, "Matters of Taste and Time in Greek Anatolian Music"

2014

Panayotis League

Harvard University, "The Musical Metrics of Poetic Dialogue in Greek Song"

2013

Max Jack

Tufts University, "On the Terrace: Ritual Performance of Identity and Conflict by the Shamrock Rovers Football Club Ultras in Dublin"

2012

Warrick Moses

Harvard University, "White Skin, Black Masks? Expressions of Identity in the Work of South African Rave-Rap Crew 'Die Antwoord'"

2012

Samantha Jones (Honorable Mention)

Boston University, "Timing and Groove in Irish Traditional Music and Dance"

2011

Ulrike Praeger

Boston University, "Music in 'Sudeten-German' Expulsion"

2010

Garrett Field

Wesleyan University, "From Threatened by Modernity to Reinvented by Modernity: The History of the History of Indian Classical Music (1980 - 2006)"

2009

Anaar Dasai-Stephens

Boston University, "Playing Their Part: The Changing Role of Professional Female Musicians in India"

2008

Katherine I. Lee

Harvard University, "P’ungmul, Politics, and Protest"

2007

Maria Guarino

Tufts University, "Common Life, Common Prayer: The Music of Community at Weston Priory"

2006

Christopher J. Miller

Wesleyan University, "Indonesian 'Musik Kontemporer' and the Question of 'Western Influence'"

2004

Anne Elise Thomas

Brown University, "Curriculum, Canon and Creativity: Youth and Arab Music Transmission in Cairo"

2002

Stephen Pixley

Wesleyan University, "Performance as Ethnographic Object: Musical Images of the Primitive in Hill Tribe Tourism"

2001

Birgit Berg

Smith College, " The Kidung Jemaat: A Christian Hymnal in a Non-Christian World"

2000

Susan Thomas

"The Transformation of the Black Man in the Cuban Zarzuela" treats issues of race and gender in a minstrel-related repertory of Cuba, making comparisons to the United States"

1999

Judith Cassleberry

Wesleyan University, "The Living Dead and Spirits: Inspiration and Guidance for Black Women in Popular American Music"

1998

Robin Carruthers

Tufts University, "Calamé: Characteristics of Lullaby in Venezuela"

1996

Timothy J. Cooley

Brown University, was awarded the 1996 Prize for his paper entitled "Authenticity on Trial in Polish Contest Festivals"

1995

Gregory Barz

"Kwayas, Kandas, Kiosks: The Making of a Tanzanian Popular Music"

1993

Frank Gunderson

Wesleyan University, "Music, Ritual and Soundscape on Wanyamwezi Caravans in 19th Century East Africa"

1992

Patrick Hutchinson

Brown University, "Hand-Made Music: An Uilleann Pipers's Way with Words"

1988

Lisa Lawson Burke

Brown University, "Te kaunikai to te kaunimaneve: Changing aspects of performance competition in Kiribati"