Music Department of Casa de las Américas. Participants include musicologists, musicians, educators, and other specialists from Latin America and the Caribbean interested in scientific knowledge, preservation, and development of the musical culture of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Cuban composer and musicologist Argeliers León is its founder. This Music Director and master of Cuban musicology laid the foundation for a prize that would include previously unpublished works on: musical historiography; interpretation and critical explanation of musical creation; traditional and folk music; theory and practice of music teaching; and other issues related to the aesthetics, sociology, and anthropology of music, among others.

The objective of Casa de las Américas in its efforts to convene the Musicology Prize is to stimulate scientific research, knowledge, and the dissemination of the musical culture of Latin America and the Caribbean. Every two years, the event brings together scholars from across the region in Havana, immersed in an intense program of theoretical debates, meetings, and exchanges of professional and personal experiences that contribute to the development of music and musicology in Latin American countries.

This Prize, cemented by the demand of outstanding composers and musicologists of our continent, has had the participation as judges of such relevant figures as César Arróspide de la Flor (Peru), Modesta Bord (Venezuela), Fernando García (Chile), Leonora Saavedra (Mexico), Héctor Tosar (Uruguay), Francisco Curt-Lange (Uruguay), Gustavo Becerra-Schmidt (Chile), Amaury Veray (Puerto Rico), Juan Pablo González (Chile), Antonio Jardim (Brazil), María Eugenia Londoño (Colombia) and the Cubans María Teresa Linares, Leonardo Acosta, Victoria Eli, Danilo Orozco, Olavo Alén and Carlos Fariñas.

Numerous works were entered, and the jury awarded and mentioned books by authors from Peru, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, and Cuba. The fifteen award-winning books were published by the Casa de las Américas Publishing House and comprise a valuable collection with significant contributions to a more comprehensive understanding of the music and culture of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Since 1999, the meeting of the Musicology Prize jury in Havana has been an ideal occasion for the International Musicology Colloquium, which has provided an important forum for the exchange of ideas, theoretical debate, and recognition of the most innovative musical thought and creation worldwide.

The works that have received awards in various editions since 1979 are: Alfonso de Silva, by Rosa Alarco (Peru); The Music of the Black Population in Peru: The Dance of the Negritos of El Carmen, by Rosa Elena Vázquez (Peru); and The Music of the French Tumba Societies in Cuba, by Olavo Alén (Cuba).

In 1982 the following were awarded: The Binarization of African Ternary Rhythms in Latin America, by Rolando Antonio Pérez Fernández (Cuba), Music in the Walagallo Cultural Complex in Nicaragua, by Idalberto Suco Campos (Cuba) and The Altiplano Siku, by Américo Valencia (Peru).

In 1986, the following awards were won: Diagnosing Musicality by Alberto Alén Pérez (Cuba); Cuban Organological Problems by Ana Victoria Casanova Oliva (Cuba); The New Chilean Song: Continuity and Reflection by Osvaldo Rodríguez Musso (Chile); and Plowing Presence in the Folk Music of Matanzas by María Elena Vinueza González (Ecuador); and in 1993, Music in the Enbera-Chami Indigenous Community of Cristianía by María Eugenia Londoño (Colombia).

The 1995 edition of the awards included: Understanding: History and Significance of the Indigenous Music of Lake Maracaibo, by Daniel Castro Aniyar (Venezuela); the 1997 edition included The Music Archive of the Havana Church of La Merced. Study and Catalogue, by Miriam Escudero Suástegui (Cuba); and the 1999 edition included Musical Songbook of Gaspar Fernandes, by Aurelio Tello (Peru).

In 2001, the following awards were awarded: “Boss of Bosses: Corrido and Narcoculture in Mexico” by José Manuel Valenzuela Arce (Mexico); in 2003, “Social History of Popular Music in Chile (1890-1950)” by Juan Pablo González and Claudio Rolle (Chile) and Doménico Zipoli: For a Genealogy of Latin American Classical Music by Bernardo Illari (Argentina); in 2005, “The Sounds of the Modern Nation: Music, Culture, and Ideas in Post-Revolutionary Mexico, 1920-1930” by Alejandro L. Madrid (Mexico); in 2008, “Avant-gardes to the South: The Music of Juan Carlos Paz” by Omar Corrado (Argentina); and finally, in 2010, “National Music: Identity, Mestizaje, and Migration in Ecuador” by Ketty Wong (Ecuador).

Regarding this award, its founder stated: “…this Musicology Prize must not be a Cuban prize, but rather a standard that adapts to the interests that arise from the specific conditions of our countries. It must therefore be an award for our America, discerned from a contemporary Latin American and Caribbean perspective.”