An announcement from Martin Stokes

This prize is offered for the best student paper presented at the BFE annual conference, 2010, held in Oxford. A panel of four readers evaluated some 19 papers submitted for consideration. All on the panel agreed that the standard was exceptionally high this year, unsurprising, perhaps, given the record number of attendees at the conference. It gives me great pleasure to announce that the prize this year is awarded to Stephanie Conn, currently a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology at the University at Toronto, for her paper "Getting To Know a Song: Memory, Social Interaction and Discourse in Cape Breton Gaelic Singing" The judges were impressed by many aspects of the work. They found the paper engaged contemporary theory with sophistication and depth, reflected productively on interesting fieldwork, and engaged some pressing questions about memory, change and transmission in traditional repertoires, attending well to both discursive and material environments. The paper's attention to the supple historicity of song in the New World Gaelic context was remarked on by several members of the panel. Congratulations, Stephanie, on this award! Thanks, and congratulations too, to all those who submitted such well-written and thought-provoking papers this year. The award will be announced at the AGM at the conference next year in Falmouth.