MLBSSA employee earns two awards

Colin Hochstetler ’24, polka processing assistant at the Music Library and Bill Schurk Sound Archives was recently given two awards by the Midwest Chapter of the American Musicological Society (AMS-MW).

The Indiana University Press Student Paper Award and the Budds Student Award (Budds Center for American Music Studies, University of Missouri) are given annually to a student presenter at the AMS-MW spring conference, held this year at Northern Illinois University from April 13-14, 2024. Students presenting at the conference are at varying levels from undergraduates to PhD candidates, and a committee of musicologists grants the awards.

Colin’s presentation on his paper titled “Establishing Musical Aesthetics in Planetarium Productions: Classical Music and the Space Race in the Adler Planetarium” earned him both awards. Colin conducted original archival research to write the paper, and various stages of his research were supported by BGSU grants.

Colin will be leaving BGSU in the fall to attend the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) to earn a Master of Music degree in musicology. He was awarded the Distinguished Graduate Fellowship in the Humanities & Arts from UIUC to pursue his studies. Colin plans to continue his research on music in planetariums, and more broadly, music in relation to space and science communication.