It was an occasion of professional accolades for Assistant Professor of Music Daniel Callahan, when the American Musicological Society held its annual meeting in Boston late last year.
During the event, Callahan—who is on leave this academic year as a 2019-2020 fellow at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study—was awarded both the 2019 Alfred Einstein Award and the 2019 Philip Brett Award for his article, “The Gay Divorce of Music and Dance: Choreomusicality and the Early Works of Cage-Cunningham,” published in 2018 in the Journal of the American Musicological Society.
Daniel Callahan (Tony Rinaldo)
It marked the first time that a single work of scholarship (article or book) has won both honors from the AMS, whose mission is to advance scholarship in the various fields of music through research, learning, and teaching.
“I am deeply grateful to be at an institution that supports me and my research materially, intellectually, and spiritually—support without which I would not have been able to complete my research and be so recognized,” Callahan said. “I hope that my work reflects well on the Music Department and Boston College.”
The Einstein award honors the best article written by a scholar in the “early” stages of their career—within 10 years of being awarded the PhD—in any language and in any country. The AMS citation praises his “landmark article” as “a genuinely original contribution to music studies, but also to modern dance studies and LGBTQ+ history.”
The Brett Award is presented by the AMS LGBTQ Study Group for the best work (book, article, edition, lecture, recording, syllabus) in the field of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender/transsexual studies completed during the previous two calendar years in any country and in any language.
With a 3.7 percent acceptance rate, the highly competitive Radcliffe Fellowships annually support the work of 50 fellows in the arts, humanities, sciences, and social sciences. As a Radcliffe fellow, Callahan is working on his second book, Conducting Oneself: Choreography, Bodies, and Identities On and Off the Podium, which examines how orchestra conductors choreograph, legitimate, and limit their movements on the podium and off, from conservatories to coveted positions.
“I am thrilled and humbled to be named the 2019–2020 Beatrice Shepherd Blane Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study,” Callahan said. “I am excited to contribute to a diverse community of scholars and artists united by a passion to produce work that crosses disciplinary boundaries. Radcliffe will allow me precious time to devote to my research and writing while also challenging me to produce work that, without sacrificing rigor and depth of thought, can communicate to the widest possible audience.”
Rosanne Pellegrini | University Communications | January 2020