2025 Densmore Prize awarded to Jayson Dobney

The 2025 Frances Densmore Prize is awarded to Jayson Dobney for his article “Side Drums, Race, and Power in North America,” Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society 49 (2023): 61–97. The article challenges Eurocentric narratives in organology by acknowledging the colonial histories that shaped instrument usage and how music and musical instruments have been used as both a practical tool and a symbol of power within the socio-cultural context of race and power structures. The committee deemed the article essential to scholars interested in the intersection of music, history, and cultural identity.

Frances Densmore Prize committee: Jonathan Santa Maria Bouquet (chair), Massimiliano Guido, Fanny Guillaume-Castel

Honorable mention: Jason Petrulis, “From Jonkonnu and Son de los diablos to Congo Square and Son Jarocho : Global Histories of the Jawbone/Quijada as a Black Musical Instrument,” American Music 41, no. 3 (Fall 2023) 287–326. The committee was impressed by the article’s significant contribution to organology as it recontextualizes the jawbone/quijada, highlighting its multifaceted cultural roles.

You can find the article here: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/34/article/941709