American Musicological Society


The American Musicological Society is a musicological organization founded in 1934 to advance scholarly research in the various fields of music as a branch of learning and scholarship. It grew out of a small contingent of the Music Teachers National Association and, more directly, the New York Musicological Society. Its founders were George S. Dickinson, Carl Engel, Gustave Reese, Helen Heffron Roberts, Joseph Schillinger, Charles Seeger, Harold Spivacke, Oliver Strunk, and Joseph Yasser. Its first president was Otto Kinkeldey, the first American to receive an appointment as professor of musicology.

Overview

The society consists of individual members divided among fifteen regional chapters across the United States, Canada, and elsewhere, as well as subscribing institutions. It was admitted to the American Council of Learned Societies in 1951, and participates in the Répertoire International des Sources Musicales and the Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale.
The society's annual meetings consist of presentations, symposia, and concerts, as well as more-or-less informal meetings of numerous related musical societies. Many of the society's awards, prizes and fellowships are announced at these meetings.

Publications

Most of the society's resources are dedicated to musicological publications: the triannual Journal of the American Musicological Society published by the University of California Press. The journal was preceded by the annual Bulletin and the annual Papers. Online versions of these publications are available at JSTOR and the University of California Press.
Other studies and documents published by the society include the complete works of William Billings, edited by Karl Kroeger et al., the series Music of the United States of America, Johannes Ockeghem's collected works edited by Dragan Plamenac and Richard Wexler, John Dunstaple's complete works edited by Manfred Bukofzer, published jointly with Musica Britannica, Joseph Kerman's The Elizabethan Madrigal, E. R. Reilly's Quantz and his Versuch, E. H. Sparks's The Music of Noel Bauldeweyn, Essays in Musicology: a Tribute to Alvin H. Johnson edited by Lewis Lockwood and Edward Roesner, and, in conjunction with the International Musicological Society, Doctoral Dissertations in Musicology edited by C. D. Adkins and A. Dickinson in succession to Helen Hewitt.