In 2018 the International Musicological Society inaugurated the IMS Guido Adler Prize (IMS GAP), named after a pioneer of our discipline and also the honorary president of the IMS when the society was founded in 1927. The IMS GAP honors distinguished scholars who have made an outstanding contribution to musicology.

IMS GAP Guidelines

1. The IMS GAP is for outstanding scholarly achievement in the fields of musicology, ethnomusicology, and music theory; professional performers may also be considered if they have contributed significantly to scholarship.
2. There will normally be one prize awarded per year; other options are two or none in any given year.
3. The Directorium will make nominations to a smaller GAP committee; the nominations will consist of a summary paragraph plus a CV that contains at least the person’s most important publications and previous awards; the committee will then decide on who should receive an award; they then report this decision as a recommendation to the Directorium; the Directorium has the final right to approve or not.
4. The committee will serve terms of three to five years and consist of three to five people who rotate on and off, one each year (if there are four on the committee, any tie vote for a candidate will be broken by the President).
5. There are no geographical restrictions on where the awardees live and work, and it is understood that this is a worldwide award. It is further understood (a) that there will be a balance of nominees from around the world, and (b) that countries with larger percentages of professional musicologists will inevitably generate more nominees.
6. The scholarship of the awardee can be in any language. In the event a nominee publishes in a language not comprehended by members of the  committee, the Directorium will suggest at least one other outside reader. Nominations for scholars who publish in a language not understood by the committee should be as long as necessary; that is, such nominations are not limited to a summary paragraph (see item 3), but can extend to whatever length necessary to explain the significance of the nominee’s research.
7. Recipients of the award need not be IMS members.

Current IMS GAP Committee

Federico Celestini (AT), Maria Rosa De Luca (IT, chair), Valentina Sandu-Dediu (RO), Imani Sanga (TZ)

IMS GAP Winners

2024: Georgina Born (Citation)
2023: Kofi Agawu, Hermann Danuser (Citations)
2021: Lorenzo Bianconi, Yoshihiko Tokumaru (Citations)
2019: Margaret Kartomi (Citation)
2018: Margaret Bent, Lewis Lockwood (Citations)