THE JAMES M. WEAVER PRIZE

If you have any ques­tions or dif­fi­cul­ties, con­tact OHS Direc­tor of Schol­ar­ship Pro­gram­ming, Dr. Jonathan Gre­goire at jmgregoire8@​gmail.​com.

Please apply and upload sub­mis­sions here: https://​forms​.gle/​b​P​V​r​3​z​p​c​N​5​b​7​d​9​YM6

The James M. Weaver Prize, named for a dis­tin­guished for­mer exec­u­tive of the Organ His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety, awards those who show excep­tion­al skill in engag­ing and teach­ing audi­ences about the pipe organ, via lec­ture and musi­cal per­for­mance. The prize rec­og­nizes the abil­i­ty to com­mu­ni­cate and edu­cate effec­tive­ly, encour­ag­ing organ­ists to advo­cate through their own nar­ra­tive the sig­nif­i­cance of their instrument’s place in his­to­ry and culture.

Eli­gi­bil­i­ty

• Appli­cants must have reached their 25th birth­day by the appli­ca­tion dead­line of Novem­ber 1, 2026 and reside in the Unit­ed States or Canada.
• Appli­cants may be per­form­ers, advanced stu­dents, edu­ca­tors, church musi­cians, or inde­pen­dent scholars.
• Mem­ber­ship in OHS is not a require­ment for eligibility.
• A non-refund­able appli­ca­tion fee of $50 is required.

THE COMPETITION

Pre­lim­i­nary round

Each appli­cant must sub­mit a cur­ricu­lum vitae or résumé in PDF for­mat that doc­u­ments their edu­ca­tion and pro­fes­sion­al sta­tus, as well as any speak­ing engage­ments and note­wor­thy con­cert performances.

Each appli­cant will demon­strate their abil­i­ty to com­mu­ni­cate through both oral pre­sen­ta­tion and performance.

Oral por­tion.

Each appli­cant must design a hypo­thet­i­cal pro­gram of about twen­ty min­utes about an exist­ing Amer­i­can organ of the applicant’s choice and record an unedit­ed 5 – 10-minute video pre­sen­ta­tion deliv­ered to a hypo­thet­i­cal lay audi­ence. The talk should address the rela­tion­ship of the musi­cal pro­gram to the cho­sen instru­ment as well as aspects of the instrument’s his­to­ry and con­text, and any details that in the applicant’s judg­ment con­tribute to an infor­mal yet engag­ing pre­sen­ta­tion. No notes or pre­sen­ta­tion slides are permitted.

Per­for­mance por­tion.

Each appli­cant must sub­mit about twen­ty min­utes of record­ed per­for­mance, with or with­out video, con­sist­ing of three con­trast­ing works rep­re­sent­ing dif­fer­ent peri­ods and styles. Pieces may be sub­mit­ted indi­vid­u­al­ly and per­formed on dif­fer­ent instru­ments pro­vid­ed they have been record­ed with­in the last two years. Tran­scrip­tions are per­mit­ted, but impro­vi­sa­tions are not allowed.

All videos must be sub­mit­ted as YouTube links (pub­lic or unlist­ed). Please upload sub­mis­sions here: https://​forms​.gle/​b​P​V​r​3​z​p​c​N​5​b​7​d​9​YM6

Final round

Three final­ists will be invit­ed to com­pete in the final round, held dur­ing the 2027 OHS Nation­al Con­ven­tion in Boston. Each final­ist will be assigned a his­toric instru­ment for a live, forty-minute pub­lic demon­stra­tion con­sist­ing of twen­ty min­utes of spo­ken remarks and twen­ty min­utes of play­ing, though play­ing and speak­ing may be inter­spersed as the final­ist choos­es. As in the pre­lim­i­nary round, the live pre­sen­ta­tion should con­nect the cho­sen pro­gram to the his­to­ry and con­text of the instru­ment, with a sim­i­lar empha­sis on engag­ing the audi­ence with a high-lev­el schol­ar­ly pre­sen­ta­tion. Both reper­to­ry and spo­ken com­men­tary must dif­fer from those of the pre­lim­i­nary round.

An open mod­er­at­ed ques­tion and response ses­sion will fol­low each presentation.

Final­ists will receive com­pli­men­ta­ry con­ven­tion reg­is­tra­tion, reim­burse­ment for trav­el to Boston, and per diem sup­port. To ensure suf­fi­cient prepa­ra­tion time, final­ists will be announced and assigned a con­ven­tion per­for­mance instru­ment by Decem­ber 1, 2026. Prizewin­ners will be announced dur­ing the con­ven­tion at the final recital.

AWARDS

First Prize

• $7,500 ($5,000 + $2,500)
• Pub­li­ca­tion in The Track­er of an edit­ed tran­script from the final-round presentation.
• Video of the final-round pre­sen­ta­tion post­ed on the OHS YouTube page.
• Invi­ta­tion to serve a two-year term on the Pub­li­ca­tions Advi­so­ry Committee.
• Invi­ta­tion to present a lec­ture-recital at the next OHS Con­ven­tion. ($2,500 paid upon com­ple­tion of the recital)
• Two-year paid mem­ber­ship in the OHS.

Sec­ond Prize

• $5,000
• Pub­li­ca­tion in The Track­er of an edit­ed tran­script from the final-round presentation.
• One-year paid mem­ber­ship in the OHS.

Third Prize

• $3,500
• Pub­li­ca­tion in The Track­er of an edit­ed tran­script from the final-round presentation.
• One-year paid mem­ber­ship in the OHS.