Collins becomes second Australian to win prestigious Dent Medal

Professor Sarah Collins FAHA.

The Dent Medal recognises a significant contribution to the discipline of musicology on an international scale. It has only ever been awarded to one other Australian since its inception in 1961 — to the late Professor Andrew McCredie in 1974.

‘I would have never dared to imagine that my name would be on any list that included the incredible people who have previously won,’ says Collins, whose research focuses on the interdisciplinary connections between music, literature, and the ideas and politics of the 19^th and 20^th centuries.

‘Receiving this award was extremely humbling and special because Dent has figured in my own research,’ Collins continues. ‘Dent was a key player in cultural internationalism after World War I that was designed to foster a more collegial world of letters and performance.’

‘Dent was by no means an uncontentious figure, but the spirit of what this medal represents — collegial scholarly and artistic networks across national borders, collaboration, and advocacy — is important.’

Collins is the President of the Musicological Society of Australia and is currently researching histories of automation in the production and consumption of music.

‘I’m also interested in discourses around and through music that engage ideas about mechanisation, agency, animation, and autonomy. Currently, I am writing a book which traces these themes of mechanisation and animacy across histories of music, theatre, literature, and film—the stage, the page, and the screen. It is fascinating work, and has many resonances with the challenges we face today with the acceleration of new technologies across work, life, and art.’

Like McCredie and Dent, the Medal also recognises Collins’ achievement in raising the profile of musicology in Australia.

‘Musicology is an expansive field, and aims to be proactively inclusive, but there is always more that can be done to raise the voices of all those who are doing great work in music research. I think it’s important to remember that disciplines change over time as new perspectives continue to re-shape the field— that is the hallmark of an active and thriving community of scholarship.’

Next year, Collins will travel to the UK to give the Dent medal address at the 2025 RMA Conference in Southampton.

In 2019, Sarah Collins received the McCredie Musicological Award from the Australian Academy of the Humanities, Australia’s most prestigious award for the study of music. The following year, she was elected a Fellow of the Academy for her exemplary scholarship in the field of musicology. She is currently Chair of Musicology at UWA’s Conservatorium of Music.

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