We are pleased to announce Black Opera: History, Power, Engagement by Naomi André has won the Society for American Music‘s Irving Lowens Book Award.

From the SAM Bulletin:
“Focusing on opera, this monograph explores important questions of how race, class and ethnicity shape not only musical works but also musical experiences in both the United States and South Africa.

“André using an innovative methodology that gives not just opera scholars but music scholars in general new ways of approaching and understanding the reception of works, making astute observations in ways the bring both clarity and complexity to both.

“André argues that opera is a ‘capacious’ genre that has been able to sustain not only a multitude of interpretations but multiple and changing audiences and in so doing makes shows the ways in operatic works depicting race have been received by diverse audiences over multiple generations.”

Congratulations, Naomi André!