Starting in 1997, the South Central Society for Music Theory has given out a Best Student Paper Award at every conference. Anyone who has not yet received a doctoral degree, or accepted a full-time position, at the time of the meeting is eligible. For co-authored papers, all authors must meet the eligibility criterion. A student may only receive the award once.
The award considers both oral and written versions of the paper. At the time of proposal submission, persons who want to be considered must declare their eligibility. Before the conference, they will be asked to submit a written version of their paper. The written version, in terms of maximum length, must accord with the person’s allotted presentation time—it should reasonably be able to be read within that time. For persons who do not wish to present from a script, they may submit alternative pre-conference material with permission from the Program Committee Chair. Oral versions of the paper will be judged as they are presented at the conference.
The Best Student Paper Award comes with a cash prize, and the winner is invited to serve on the Program Committee for the following year’s conference. Honorable mention may be given to a paper that does not win the award, but which the Program Committee deems is a close runner-up deserving of recognition because of outstanding merit. Papers that receive honorable mention do not receive a cash prize.
Past winners of the Best Student Paper Award are:
• 2024 Stefanie Bilidas, “Tap Dance Choreographers as Composer-Analysts: Formal Interactions between Tap Dance and Post-Millennial Pop Music.”
* Honorable mention: Hanisha Kulothparan, “The Evolution of the Hero’s Introduction: Topic and Intercultural Trope in Kollywood Film Music.”
• 2023 Pamela Mason-Nguyen, “Song of Memories”: Schematic Borrowing in Final Fantasy IX”
• 2022 Lauren Wilson, “Gray v. Perry: The Case for Communal Ownership of Musical Objects”
• 2021 Emily Milius, “The Voice as Trauma Recovery: Vocal Timbre in Kesha’s ‘Praying’”
• 2020 Jordan Lenchitz, “Spectral Fission in Barbershop Harmony”
• 2019 John Y. Lawrence, “Three Forms of ‘Tristesse’”
• 2018 Andrew Selle, Formal Function in Electroacoustic Music: A Spectromorphological Approach”
• 2017 Robert Komaniecki, “Coercing the Verse: An Analysis of Relationships Between Lead and Guest Rappers”
• 2016 Daniel Thompson, “A Topical Exploration of the Jazz Messengers’ 1963 Recording ‘One By One’”
• 2015 Sean Clarke, “Boulez the Classicist: Phrase Structure in Anthèmes I, Incises and Une page d’éphéméride”
• 2014 Joseph Chi-Sing Siu, “Hypermetrical Shift in Haydn’s Late Monothematic Sonatas”
• 2013 Scott C. Schumann, “Interpreting the Mourning Process through Hindemith’s Trauermusik.”
• 2012 Timothy D. Saeed, “A Theoretical Application of Mathis Lussy’s Tripartite Classifications of ‘Accent’ in Chopin’s Nocturne in D-flat Major, op. 27, no. 2.”
• 2011 David Easley, “One Piece at a Time: Riff Schemes and Form in Early American Hard-core Punk”
• 2010 Alan Theisen, “Elliott Carter’s Readings of Ungaretti Poems in Tempo e Tempi”
• 2009 David Forrest, “The Importance of Parallel Harmonization in Britten’s War Requiem”
Outstanding Student Paper/Presentation winners:
• 2008 Michael Chikida, “Due liriche di Anacreonte and a Narrative of Exile”
• 2007 J. Daniel Jenkins, “Nacht, Contrapuntal Composition and the Twelve-Tone Path”
• 2005 Michael Baker, “Formal Repeats, Tonal Expectation and ‘Tonal Pun’ in Bach’s Suites for Unaccompanied Cello”
• 2004 Rob Keller, “Mapping the Soundscape: Variation Form in Electronic Dance Music.”
• 2001 Jonathan Brooks, “Implied Notes and Imaginary Sounds.”
• 1999 Aaminah Durrani, “Cadence Construction in Machaut’s Two-Voice Ballades”
• 1998 Linda Berna, “The Fundamental Structure of Schubert’s ‘Auf dem Flusse’: An Alternative Reading.”
• 1997 Melissa Garmon Roberts, “Nikos Skalkottas’ Harmonic Conception As Reflected Through System 12b”