Knapp

Raymond Knapp, professor of musicology at the University of California-Los Angeles, is the winner of the 2004-05 George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism. The award, which carries a $10,000 prize, is administered by the Cornell University Department of English and is one of the most generous and distinguished in the American theater. Knapp was selected by a committee representing the English departments of Cornell, Princeton and Yale universities, assisted by theater experts from those universities.

Knapp was honored for his book "The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity" (Princeton University Press, 2005).

The Nathan committee citation states: "Knapp directs a new generation of theatre-goers to the most historically successful of American theatrical forms. Even more importantly, it shows them why making the trip is worthwhile. Bringing musicological expertise and technical savvy to bear on the history of the musical play from Sullivan to Sondheim, Knapp makes his narrative vivid and his examples clear … Forward-looking in form of publication as well as content, 'The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity' links up online to audio examples … thereby connecting Tin Pan Alley to the Information Superhighway."

Knapp joined the UCLA faculty in 1989 and teaches courses on Beethoven, the American musical, nationalism, Mahler, Haydn, Mozart, absolute music and musical allusion. He earned a B.A. degree in music at Harvard, an M.A. in composition at Radford University and a Ph.D. in musicology at Duke University. His principal research interests are music from the 18th through 20th centuries, and he has published and given talks on Landini, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Brahms, Dvorák, Mahler, Tchaikovsky, Bartók and various topics relating to the American musical and film music. His other books, "Brahms and the Challenge of the Symphony" and "Symphonic Metamorphoses: Subjectivity and Alienation in Mahler's Re-Cycled Songs," were published in 1997 and 2003, respectively.

The Nathan award is administered under the terms of a trust established by George Jean Nathan, author, critic and 1904 Cornell graduate. Given annually since 1958, the award honors the "the best piece of dramatic criticism, whether article, essay, treatise or book," published during the theatrical year. For a complete description of the Nathan award and its origins, visit http://www.arts.cornell.edu/english/nathan/.

Past recipients of the Nathan Award have included Walter Kerr (1963) and Mel Gussow (1978), both of The New York Times, Albert Williams (2000) of the Chicago Reader, Alisa Solomon (1998) of The Village Voice and Hilton Als (2003) of The New Yorker.