In 2018 the IMS Guido Adler Prize was awarded to Margaret Bent and Lewis Lockwood.

Margaret Bent
The IMS Directorium has chosen Margaret Bent to receive this award because of her lifetime record of path-breaking research in early music. We are impressed by the breadth, precision, and insightfulness of her work, along with her considerable respect for the history and music that she studies. Through her research she has helped scholars and performers to better understand—and to better “hear”—earlier musical repertories. She has questioned received views on numerous topics, pushing forward ground-breaking and field-defining ideas concerning counterpoint, composition, musica ficta, mensuration, isorhythm, and editorial and performance practice that often interface with literary, historical, and biographical questions. Her articles are a model of style, form, and rhetoric.

Being one of the most important figures of the last fifty years in our field, Bent’s scholarship has been recognized with numerous honors and awards. She has served as president of the American Musicological Society, and she is still active as an emeritus fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. For many female colleagues she is a role model for a successful and renowned woman in the academic world. With her brilliant work and her dedication to the field she has inspired and continues to inspire generations of researchers and performers.

Lewis Lockwood
The IMS Directorium has chosen Lewis Lockwood to receive this award because of his lifetime record of path-breaking research, and his outstanding administrative achievements. We are impressed with his remarkable record as a teacher and mentor to a generation of scholars who have themselves gone on to distinguished careers. He has been one of the scholarly leaders of his generation in two fields (music of the Renaissance and the life and music of Beethoven); he has received many prestigious awards, and he has served as president of the American Musicological Society and as editor of its journal.

With regard to his studies of the Italian Renaissance, we note with admiration his contributions to the musical history of Ferrara and to a deeper understanding of music of the Counter-Reformation, but also to questions of musica ficta and musical style and genre. We wish further to commend his far-reaching studies about the life and music of Beethoven. His biographical insights, his ability to decipher and interpret the most difficult sketches and autographs, and his understanding of Beethoven’s music has enriched both specialist readers and general readers who have turned to him repeatedly because of the elegance and directness of his writing. We also admire the fact that he has written more books since his retirement than before, and that he is even now engaged in writing another book. Both in his work and in his life, Lockwood has been and continues to be an inspiration to many. 

Committee

Florence Gétreau (FR), Andrea Lindmayr-Brandl (AT), Christopher Reynolds (US, chair), Suk Won Yi (KR)

THIS PRIZE WAS GENEROUSLY SUPPORTED BY
KATHRYN JOURDAN AND PAUL JOURDAN.