The Neil Rosenberg Bluegrass Scholar Award recognizes excellence in academic research related to bluegrass music. Named in honor of Bluegrass Hall of Fame member and noted historian Neil V. Rosenberg, PhD, the award aims to foster academic interest in the genre by encouraging high-quality research from emerging scholars.
This award annually recognizes the best bluegrass-related paper accepted by a juried academic conference during the previous year or the best bluegrass-related thesis paper. Developing academic scholars eligible for this award include graduate students in MA or PhD programs and recent PhDs (within five years of degree completion).
The objective of this award is to grow the academic awareness of bluegrass music by encouraging developing scholars to present research of high quality to fellow scholars on any aspect of the genre. The recipient of the Rosenberg Bluegrass Scholar Award, to be announced in early August, will receive a $1,000 honorarium plus admission to the next IBMA Business Conference and Music Awards Show in October 2026.
The first IBMA Academic Prize (as it was then known) was presented in 2011 to Benjamin Krakauer, PhD. The IBMA Foundation took responsibility for the award in 2018. Nathaniel Mitchell, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Music Theory at Delaware University, received the award in 2025. Please go to this link to read about previous recipients and sponsors of the Rosenberg Award, including links to winning papers.
We are grateful to Paolo Dettwiler, the sponsor of the 2025 and the 2026 Rosenberg Bluegrass Awards. Dettwiler, director and manager of North-Western Switzerland Bluegrass & SwissGrass Productions, is a mandolin player who started performing with his father’s band, The Country Pickers, at age 17. A key figure in European Bluegrass, Paolo co-founded the Swiss Bluegrass Music Association (SBMA) in 1994 and initiated the European Bluegrass Network in 1995, which led to the formation of the European Bluegrass Music Association (EBMA). He served on the IBMA board of directors from 1998-2011, and he promoted bluegrass in his role as editor of SBMA’s newsletter and later as publisher of Bluegrass Europe magazine (1989-2011). Paolo holds an MA in History and English from Basel University and specializes in digital learning as a teacher at a business college.
The deadline to be considered for the 2026 Rosenberg Bluegrass Scholarship Award from the IBMA Foundation is June 30. Entries may be emailed to info@bluegrassfoundation.org.
RETURN to the May 2026 issue of The Cornerstone.
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