The Society for Music Theory awards recognition for significant contributions to music theory, analysis, or history of theory. Eligibility extends to books and articles in English, published between January 1 and December 31 for three years prior to the year of the award. To nominate a publication for a 2012 Publication Award, please see the a Publication Award Nomination page on this web site. Past recipients are listed below.

• The Wallace Berry Award is given for a distinguished book by an author of any age or career stage.
• The Outstanding Publication Award is given for a distinguished article by an author of any age or career stage.
• The Emerging Scholar Award is given for a book or article published within five years of the author's receipt of Ph.D. (or, in the case of someone who does not hold a Ph.D., before the author reaches the age of forty).
• The Citation of Special Merit is awarded for an edition, translation, reference work, or edited volume of extraordinary value to the discipline.

2012

• Wallace Berry Award: Janet Schmalfeldt, In the Process of Becoming: Analytic and Philosophical Perspectives on Form in Early Nineteenth-Century Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
• Outstanding Publication Award: Peter Franck, "'A Fallacious Concept': Invertible Counterpoint at the Twelfth within the Ursatz," Music Theory Spectrum 32/2 (Fall 2010): 121-44.
• Emerging Scholar Award: Steven Rings, Tonality and Transformation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
• Citation of Special Merit: Edward Gollin and Alexander Rehding, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Neo-Riemannian Music Theories. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

2011

• Wallace Berry Award: Danuta Mirka, Metric Manipulations in Haydn and Mozart: Chamber Music for Strings, 1787–1791. Oxford University Press, 2010.
• Outstanding Publication Award: Joseph Straus, "Voice Leading in Set-Class Space," Journal of Music Theory 49.1 (2005): 45–108.
• Emerging Scholar Award: Benjamin Levy, "Shades of the Studio: Electronic Influences on Ligeti’s Apparitions," Perspectives of New Music 47.2 (2009): 59–87.
• Citation of Special Merit: Maureen Carr, Stravinsky’s Pulcinella: A Facsimile of the Sources and Sketches. A-R Editions, 2010.

2010

• Wallace Berry Award: Nicholas Cook, The Schenker Project: Culture, Race, and Music Theory in Fin-de-siècle Vienna. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
• Outstanding Publication Award: Dora Hanninen, "Associative Sets, Categories, and Music Analysis," Journal of Music Theory 48/2 (2004), 147–218.
• Emerging Scholar Award: Michiel Schuijer, Analyzing Atonal Music: Pitch-Class Set Theory and Its Contexts. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2008.
• Citation of Special Merit: Evan Jones, editor: Intimate Voices: The Twentieth-Century String Quartet, 2 vol., ed. Evan Jones. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2009.

2009

• Wallace Berry Award: Robert Gjerdingen Music in the Galant Style. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
• Outstanding Publication Award: Ian Quinn, "General Equal-Tempered Harmony (Introduction and Part I)," Perspectives of New Music 44/2 (2006), 6–50, and “General Equal-Tempered Harmony: Parts II and III," Perspectives of New Music 45/1 (2007) 114–58.
• Emerging Scholar Award: Scott Murphy, "On Metre in the Rondo of Brahm’s Op. 25,” Music Analysis 26/3 (2007), 323–52.

2008

• Wallace Berry Award: James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and Deformations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
• Outstanding Publication Award: L. Poundie Burstein, "The Off-Tonic Return in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Major, Op. 58, and Other Works," Music Analysis 24/3 (2005), 1–43.
• Emerging Scholar Award: Su Yin Mak, "Schubert's Sonata Forms and the Poetics of the Lyric," Journal of Musicology 23/2 (2006), 263–306.
• Citation of Special Merit: Canons and Canonic Techniques, 14th–16th Centuries: Theory, Practice, and Reception History, Katelijne Schiltz and Bonnie J. Blackburn Peeters, editors. Leuven and Belgium: Peeters, 2007.

2007

• Wallace Berry Award: David Huron, Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006.
• Outstanding Publication Award: Elizabeth Eva Leach, "Gendering the Semitone, Sexing the Leading Tone: Fourteenth-Century Music Theory and the Directed Progression” Music Theory Spectrum 28/1 (2006), 1–21.
• Emerging Scholar Award: Matthew Bribitzer-Stull, "The A-flat–C–E Complex: The Origin and Function of Chromatic Major Third Collections in Nineteenth-Century Music," Music Theory Spectrum 28/2 (2006), 167–90.
• Citation of Special Merit: Deborah Stein, editor: Engaging Music: Essays in Music Analysis, ed. Deborah Stein. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

2006

• Wallace Berry Award: Anna Maria Busse Berger, Medieval Music and the Art of Memory. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.
• Outstanding Publication Award: Anthony Pople, "Using Complex Set Theory for Tonal Analysis: An Introduction to the Tonalities Project, Music Analysis.
• Emerging Scholar Award: David Carson Berry, "The Meaning(s) of ‘Without': An Exploration of Liszt's Bagatelle ohne Tonart," 19th-Century Music 27/3 (2004), 230–62.
• Citation of Special Merit: David Lewin, Studies in Music with Text. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
• Citation of Special Merit: Milton Babbit, The Collected Essays of Milton Babbitt, edited by Stephen Peles, with Steven Dembski, Andrew Mead, and Joseph Straus. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.

2005

• Wallace Berry Award: Marc Perlman, Unplayed Melodies: Javanese Gamelan and the Genesis of Music Theory. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004.
• Outstanding Publication Award: Michael Klein, "Chopin's Fourth Ballade as Musical Narrative," Music Theory Spectrum 26/1 ( 2004): 23–55.
• Emerging Scholar Award: Julian Hook, "Uniform Triadic Transformations," Journal of Music Theory 46/1–2 (2002), 57–126.
• Citation of Special Merit: Claude Palisca, editor and translator: Vincenzo Galilei, Dialogue on Ancient and Modern Music, trans., ed., and introduction by Claude Palisca. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.
• Citation of Special Merit: Heinrich Schenker, Der Tonwille, 2 vols., edited by William Drabkin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004–05.

2004

• Wallace Berry Award: Lawrence Zbikowski, Conceptualizing Music: Cognitive Structure. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Outstanding Publication Award: Alfred Cramer, "Schoenberg's Klangfarbenmelodie: A Principle of Early Atonal Harmony," Music Theory Spectrum 24/1 (2002), 1–34.
• Emerging Scholar Award: Ian Quinn, "Listening to Similarity Relations," Perspectives of New Music 39/2 (2001). 108–58.

2003

• Wallace Berry Award: Fred Lerdahl, Tonal Pitch Space. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
• Outstanding Publication Award: David E. Cohen, "The Imperfect Seeks its Perfection: Harmonic Progression, Directed Motion, and Aristotelian Physics," Music Theory Spectrum 23/2 (2001), 139–69.
• Emerging Scholar Award: David Temperley, The Cognition of Basic Musical Structures. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2001.
• Citation of Special Merit: Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, edited by Thomas Christensen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

2002

• Wallace Berry Award: Harald Krebs, Fantasy Pieces: Metric Dissonance in the Music of Robert Schumann. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
• Outstanding Publication Award: David Huron, "Tone and Voice: A Derivation of the Rules of Voice-Leading from Perceptual Principles," Music Perception 19/1 (Fall 2001). 1–64.
• Emerging Scholar Award: Martin Scherzinger, "Negotiating the Music-Theory/African-Music Nexus: A Political Critique of Ethnomusicological Anti-Formalism and a Strategic Analysis of the Harmonic Patterning of the Shona Mbira Song 'Nyamaropa'," Perspectives of New Music 39/1 (2001). 5–117.

2001

• Wallace Berry Award: Cristle Collins Judd, Reading Renaissance Music Theory: Hearing with the Eyes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
• Outstanding Publication Award: Robert Morris, "Voice-Leading Spaces," Music Theory Spectrum 20/2 (1998), 175–208.
• Emerging Scholar Award: Channan Willner, "Sequential Expansion and Handelian Phrase Rhythm," in Schenker Studies 2, Carl Schacther and Hedi Siegel, editors. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999: 192–221.

2000

• Wallace Berry Award: Thomas Mathiesen, Apollo's Lyre. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1999.

1999

• Wallace Berry Award: William Caplin, Classical Form: A Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental Music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
• Outstanding Publication Award: Charles J. Smith, "Musical Form and Fundamental Structure: An Investigation of Schenker's Formenlehre," Music Analysis, 15/2-3 (1996), 191–297.
• Emerging Scholar Award: Norman Carey and David Clampitt, "Regions: A Theory of Tonal Spaces in Early Medieval Treatises," Journal of Music Theory 40/1 (1996), 113–47.
• Emerging Scholar Award: Cristle Collins Judd, "Josquin's Gospel Motets and Chant-Based Tonality," in Tonal Structures in Early Music, edited by Cristle Collins Judd. New York: Garland, 1998: 109–54.

1998

• Wallace Berry Award: Christopher Hasty, Meter as Rhythm. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
• Outstanding Publication Award: Naomi Cumming, "The Subjectivities of 'Erbarme Dich,'" Music Analysis 16/1 (1997), 5–54.
• Emerging Scholar Award: Robert Snarrenberg, Schenker’s Interpretive Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

1997

• Wallace Berry Award: Allen Forte, American Popular Ballad. Princeton: University of Princeton Press, 1995.
• Wallace Berry Award: Robert Hatten, Musical Meaning in Beethoven. Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press, 1994.
• Outstanding Publication Award: Richard Cohn, "Maximally Smooth Cycles, Hexatonic Systems, and the Analysis of Late-Romantic Triadic Progressions," Music Analysis 15/1 (1996): 9–40.
• Emerging Scholar Award: Leslie David Blasius, Schenker’s Argument and the Claims of Music Theory. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1996.

1996

• Wallace Berry Award: Scott Burnham, Beethoven Hero. Princeton: University of Princeton Press, 1995.
• Outstanding Publication Award: Carl Schachter, “The Triad as Place and Action,” Music Theory Spectrum 17/2 (1995): 149–69.
• Emerging Scholar Award: Joel Galand, “Form, Genre, and Style in the Eighteenth-Century Rondo,” Music Theory Spectrum 17/1 (1995): 27–52.
• Emerging Scholar Award: Brian Hyer, “Reimag(in)ing Riemann,” Journal of Music Theory 39/1 (1995): 101–38.

1995

• Wallace Berry Award: Warren Darcy, Wagner’s Das Rheingold. Oxford and New York: University of Oxford Press, 1993.
• Outstanding Publication Award: John Roeder, “Interacting Pulse Streams in Schoenberg’s Atonal Polyphony,” Music Theory Spectrum 16/2 (1994): 231–49.
• Emerging Scholar Award: Daniel Harrison, Harmonic Function in Tonal Music, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.
• Citation of Special Merit: Ian Bent, editor. Music Analysis in the Nineteenth Century. Rochester: Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1994

1994

• Wallace Berry Award: Thomas Christensen, Rameau and Musical Thought in the Enlightenment. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1993.
• Outstanding Publication Award: Richard Cohn, "Transpositional Combination of Beat-Class Sets in Steve Reich’s Phase-Shifting Music" Perspectives of New Music 30/2 (1992): 146–77.
• Emerging Scholar Award: V. Kofi Agawu Playing with Signs: A Semiotic Interpretation of Classic Music. Princeton: University of Princeton Press, 1991.

1993

• Wallace Berry Award: Joel Lester, Compositional Theory in the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge MA: University of Harvard Press, 1992.
• Outstanding Publication Award: John Clough and Jack Douthett, "Maximally Even Sets" Journal of Music Theory 35 (1991): 93–173.
• Emerging Scholar Award: Richard Kurth, “Mosaic Polyphony: Formal Balance, Imbalance, and Phrase Formation in the Prelude of Schoenberg's Suite, Op. 25,” Music Theory Spectrum 14 (1992): 188–208.
• Emerging Scholar Award: Elizabeth West Marvin, “The Perception of Rhythm in Non-Tonal Music," Music Theory Spectrum 13 (1991): 61–78.

1992

• Outstanding Publication Award: Wallace Berry, Musical Structure and Performance. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.
• Emerging Scholar Award: Joseph Dubiel,"Three Essays on Milton Babbitt": [I] "Thick Array/Of Depth Immeasurable"; [II] "For Making This Occasion Necessary"; [III] "The Animation of Lists," Perspectives of New Music 28/2–30/1 (1990–1992).
• Citation of Special Merit: Michael Friedman, Ear Training for 20th-Century Music. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990.

1991

• Outstanding Publication Award: Joseph N. Straus, Remaking the Past. Cambridge MA: University of Harvard Press, 1990.
• Emerging Scholar Award: Kevin Korsyn, “Schenker and Kantian Epistemology," Theoria 3 (1988): 1–58.
• Citation of Special Merit: David Damschroder and David Russell Williams, Music Theory from Zarlino to Schenker. Stuyvesant NY: Pendragon Press, 1990.

1990

• Outstanding Publication Award: Pieter C. van den Toorn, Stravinsky and the Rite of Spring. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.
• Emerging Scholar Award: William Rothstein, Phrase Rhythm in Tonal Music. New York: Schirmer, 1989.
• Citation of Special Merit: Calvin Bower, translator: Boethius’s Fundamentals of Music, trans. Calvin Bower, ed. Claude Palisca. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989.

1989

• Outstanding Publication Award: Lee Rothfarb, Ernst Kurth as Theorist and Analyst. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988.
• Emerging Scholar Award: Andrew Mead, “Some Implications of the Pitch Class/Order Number Isomorphism Inherent in the Twelve-Tone System,” Perspectives of New Music 36/2–27/1 (1988–1989).
• Citation of Special Merit: John Rothgeb and Jürgen Thym, translators: Heinrich Schenker, KCounterpoint, trans. by John Rothgeb and Jürgen Thym. New York: Schirmer, 1987.

1988

• Outstanding Publication Award: Robert Morris, Composition with Pitch Classes. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.
• Emerging Scholar Award: Jonathan Bernard, The Music of Edgard Varèse. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.

1987

• Outstanding Publication Award: Robert Cogan, New Images of Musical Sound. Cambridge MA: University of Harvard Press, 1984.
• Emerging Scholar Award: David Neumeyer, The Music of Paul Hindemith. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.

1986

• Outstanding Publication Award: Wayne Slawson, Sound Color. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.
• Emerging Scholar Award: Steven V. Peles, “Interpretation of Sets in Multiple Dimensions,” Perspectives of New Music 22 (1983–1984).