Bruckner Society of America to award Joseph Kilenyi Medal of Honor to Paul Hawkshaw
The Bruckner Society of America announced this week that Paul Hawkshaw will be awarded the Joseph Kilenyi Medal of Honor. This honor is given to individuals whose work exemplifies the understanding and appreciation of the life and music of Anton Bruckner.
Paul Hawkshaw is Deputy Dean of the Yale School of Music as well as Professor in the Practice of Musicology and the director of the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival.
The Board of Directors of the Bruckner Society noted Hawkshaw's "strong advocacy of Bruckner's work as seen in the many articles, essays, editions, and addresses [he has] prepared in [his] illustrious career." In particular, the organization wrote, "His research on the Mass in F Minor and the Eighth Symphony are milestones in our understanding of Bruckner's music."
The Bruckner Society of America was established in 1931, and Medals of Honor have been given to such musical luminaries as Otto Klemperer, Bruno Walter, Arturo Toscanini, and Paul Hindemith. The medal will be presented to Paul at Yale's Commencement this spring.
Dean Robert Blocker extended his heartiest congratulations to Hawkshaw, saying, "That he has served the School with extraordinary leadership while continuing his scholarly work with critical distinction is in itself a remarkable achievement. Most importantly, Paul extends to our community a quiet sense of humanity that enriches us all."
Professor Hawkshaw’s publications include seven volumes of Bruckner’s collected works (Vienna), which are performed by major orchestras and choruses throughout the world. His articles have appeared in The Musical Quarterly, Nineteenth-Century Music, and the Oesterreichische Musikzeitschrift, and he wrote the Bruckner biography for Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians. In 1996 he was invited by the Austrian National Library in Vienna, to give the commemorative address marking the centenary of the composer’s death.
Since coming to Yale in 1984, Professor Hawkshaw has taken an active interest in community affairs and public education in New Haven. He was co-founder of a program involving Yale music faculty and students in the curriculum at the local Co-operative High School for the Arts. In 1998 the program was recognized by Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley as a model of how music plays an integral role in improving overall education standards. Most recently he worked with the New Haven Board of Education and the Yale College Class of ’57 to establish a music and literacy program at an inner-city public elementary school. This led to the creation of an endowment of $6 million by the Class of ’57 to support public school music education. Paul Hawkshaw has been awarded the Yale School of Music’s highest honor, the Sanford Medal, for his scholarship and community service.
Born in Toronto, Canada, Professor Hawkshaw received his Ph.D. in musicology from Columbia University in 1984. He has recently completed a new edition of Anton Bruckner’s Mass in F minor that received its premiere in Vienna’s Grosse Musikvereinsaal in June 2008, and his critical edition of the composer’s Eighth Symphony is in progress. In 2007 he was appointed co-editor of Wiener Bruckner Studien, published under the auspices of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He is currently working on a biography of the composer for Yale University Press.
