UChicago Prof. Philip V. Bohlman and UChicago Prof. Martha C. Nussbaum were awarded the International Balzan Prizes for their seminal and sustained contributions respectively to ethnomusicology and music research and wide-ranging philosophical topics.

The annual Balzan Prizes honor “scholars and scientists who have distinguished themselves in their fields on an international level.” Bohlman has received the first Balzan Prize in ethnomusicology—a relatively new field—and only one of five awards in music scholarship ever granted. Of the four Balzan Prizes awarded in 2022, UChicago faculty received an unusually high 50 percent share.

“I have sought to reveal the ways musicology can allow a scholarly world to deal with critical ideas and look at crucial problems in the world of migration,” said Bohlman, the Ludwig Rosenberger Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Music. “We are not limited to specialties; big ideas drive us forward as activist scholars.”

Read more at The University of Chicago Division of the Humanities