This past weekend, Associate Professor of Music Studies Revell Carr was awarded the Alan P. Merriam Prize at the annual Society for Ethnomusicology Conference.
The Merriam prize is the most prestigious prize in the society and is awarded for “the most distinguished, published, English-language monograph in the field of ethnomusicology.” Dr. Carr received the award for his 2014 book Hawaiian Music in Motion: Mariners, Missionaries, and Minstrels.
“The book is a sophisticated social history of Hawaiian music and globalization, as told through carefully researched, evocatively drawn, and richly interpreted discussions of Hawaiian performance, both at home and abroad,” said former society president Harris Berger at the awards ceremony.
“An extraordinarily diverse set of sources, topics, genres, and settings are discussed in the book. From the early colonial encounters of the late eighteenth century, to interactions between Hawaiian, American, European, and African sailors in the whaling industry, to the performances of Hawaiians in North American, and struggles among American missionaries, American sailors, and native Hawaiians that played out in theatre and song, Carr reveals the complex ways in which situated actors with contrasting identities struggle for meaning in a world shot through with power relations.”
