The Royal Musical Association and Cambridge University Press Edited Book Prize for 2025 goes to Peter McMurray and Priyasha Mukhopadhyay for their edited collection Acoustics of Empire: Sound, Media and Power in the Long Nineteenth Century (OUP, 2024).

This highly polished collection significantly shapes its field not only through exploring global histories of sound and sound technologies with new interpretations and in new contexts, but also by creating an interdisciplinary discourse embracing music, history, history of science, literature and political science against a background of postcolonial studies. Drawing on a range of methodologies, the volume consciously seeks to listen to voices that have been historically silenced while probing an impressively wide range of cultural contexts and sound sources. The volume will be relevant to a wide range of scholars well beyond its ethnomusicological core.

Honourable mentions also go to two collections:

Robert Sholl ed., Messiaen in Context (CUP, 2024).

This wide-ranging collection makes a significant contribution to the field of Messiaen and twentieth-century French music scholarship in offering fresh insights alongside new research.  This authoritative study will be a key source for years to come.

Toby Young ed., The Cambridge Companion to Composition (CUP, 2024)

Bringing together an impressive range of leading composers, this innovative collection explores a dizzying array of critical and practical tools in a wide range of genres, styles and contexts while also considering the complexities of defining what a composer is or can be.  Thought-provoking, rich in insights and supported by a truly outstanding bibliography, the volume engages with issues and ideas that are as pertinent to performers and scholars of contemporary music as well as to those discovering their own creative voices.

Congratulations to all our winners!