Maqam Beyond Nation is proud to share that Professor Owen Wright, esteemed member of our Advisory Board and Emeritus Professor of Musicology of the Middle East at SOAS University of London, has been awarded the 2025 Derek Allen Prize by the British Academy. This prestigious award, presented annually in rotation across the fields of musicology, numismatics, and Celtic studies, recognizes outstanding scholarly contributions. This year, it honours Professor Wright for his distinction in musicology.

The Derek Allen Prize Committee reflected:

“Since the 1970s, Professor Wright has specialized in the music and historical musicology of the Middle East, producing seven field-defining monographs alongside numerous chapters and articles. His work has transformed the field by transcending traditional boundaries between ethnomusicology, historical musicology, music theory, and analysis. Through editions, translations, commentaries, and interpretive surveys of major sources in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, he has addressed significant gaps in our understanding of these musical traditions.”

Professor Wright first earned a degree in French from Leicester University before undertaking a second BA in Arabic at SOAS, where he later completed his PhD. His distinguished academic career at SOAS included appointments as Lecturer and Reader in Arabic and culminated in his position as Professor of Musicology of the Middle East. He also served as Head of the Department of the Near and Middle East and Chair of the Centre for Music Studies.

His research has long explored the historical evolution of the art-music traditions of the Islamic Near and Middle East, engaging both theoretical writings and documentation of musical practice in notations and song-text collections. A Festschrift dedicated to his scholarship, Theory and Practice in the Music of the Islamic World (Harris and Stokes 2018). Among his recent works are The Ottoman Classical Repertoire in Historical Perspective (Routledge, 2025) and Music Theory in the Safavid Age (Routledge, 2019), alongside a range of influential studies that have deeply informed the study of maqam traditions.

We extend our warmest congratulations to Professor Wright on this exceptional achievement. His lifelong dedication to the study of the musical traditions of the Islamic world continues to inform and inspire the work of Maqam Beyond Nation. His scholarship exemplifies the project’s commitment to understanding the maqam as a shared cultural and historical phenomenon that transcends national boundaries.

 

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