I’m happy to share that Leo Kottke/6- and 12-String Guitar: A Companion, which I coauthored with Benjamin Kammin and published through Stropes Editions, Ltd., has received First Prize in Book Design and First Prize in Music for Fretted Instruments in the Music Publishers Association’s 2026 Paul Revere Awards for Graphic Excellence.
The two-volume Companion brings together transcriptions of all fourteen pieces on Leo’s 1969 album with an account of the events surrounding its release. Photographs, correspondence, and other historical material accompany the music, while QR codes connect readers to additional essays, audio, video, and performance variants.
I was especially pleased to learn who the judges were. The music engraving panel included Joel Sachs, pianist, conductor, Juilliard professor emeritus, and biographer of Henry Cowell; Jane Cross, music archivist at the Library of Congress and former chief librarian of the United States Marine Band; and Robert Sutherland, retired principal librarian of the Metropolitan Opera. The separate graphics panel comprised Nim Ben-Reuven, book and packaging designer, and Emmanuel Wisdom, lettering artist and graphic designer.
My work with fingerstyle guitar has often taken me outside the usual academic categories. It is a particular pleasure to have these books recognized by judges whose experience reaches so widely across music, scholarship, libraries, and design.
I also want to give particular credit to Clayton Feller of Feller Design for the book and cover design and production coordination, and to The Fox Company in Milwaukee for printing and fabricating the volumes. Clay Feller and The Fox Company embraced the vision with extraordinary imagination and care, creating a publication that exceeded every expectation and set a new standard for how fingerstyle guitar music can live on the printed page.
My thanks to the Music Publishers Association and its judges, to everyone who contributed to the Companion, and to the readers and players who have welcomed these books. I’m glad to share this good news with you—and grateful for the encouragement to carry this work forward.