Jonathan Rhodes Lee (Music) has received the Ruth Solie Prize from the North American British Music Studies Association. The organization gives this award biennially for what it deems “the most outstanding article on a subject in British music” published over the previous two years. The prize committee praised Lee’s “meticulous scholarship” and “wide range of sources.” It noted further, “We all enjoyed the consistently lively and engaging writing and how the clear chronological planning drew attention to changes in the way music was perceived within the context of divine service. We applaud Lee on finding a new angle in the crowded field of Handel research. We had an impressive list of articles to consider, with several strong contenders, so this award is a particularly notable achievement.”

Lee received this prize for “Music, Morality, and Sympathy in the Eighteenth-Century English Sermon,” published in the journal Eighteenth-Century Music. This article examines the phenomenon of the music sermon, published in large numbers throughout the 18th century. It demonstrates that the ideas of sympathy and sensibility characteristic of so much 18th-century thought are vital to understanding these publications, thereby placing this literature within the context of some of the most discussed philosophical, social, literary, musical, and moral-aesthetic concepts of the time.