Not only younger people with apparent disabilities, but also all those who manage to grow old — and everyone who loves a member of either group — will appreciate the ideas Belser set down in her book “Loving Our Own Bones,” which also won a National Jewish Book Award. In it, Belser uses disability theory and her own experience to rethink Biblical texts and rabbinic literature. The result is a rereading of Biblical characters such as Moses, Isaac, and Jacob, leading to an engaging analysis of ableism, and a refreshing political and social view of disability.

“Instead of grounding her work in the standard question of what the Jewish and Christian traditions say about disability, Belser asks how disability experience can serve as a ‘generative force,’ a ‘source of embodied knowledge’ about our spiritual lives,” said Grawemeyer Religion Award Director and Interim Dean of the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary Tyler Mayfield. “’Loving Our Own Bones’ and Rabbi Belser are worthy additions to our revered list of Grawemeyer winners.”

The first Grawemeyer Religion Award went to E.P. Sanders in 1990 for his provocative book “Jesus and Judaism.” Acclaimed author Marilynne Robinson won the 2006 Grawemeyer Religion Award for “Gilead“ – the only time a novel has won. Rabbi Belser also joins the company of distinguished professors Stephen L. Carter (“The Culture of Disbelief”) and Diana Eck (“Encountering God“) in winning the Grawemeyer Religion Award.

Charles Marsh, who won the 1998 Grawemeyer Award in Religion for “God’s Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights,” later described the impact the prize had on his career: “The Grawemeyer Award encouraged me to imagine concrete strategies for integrating the lessons I had learned into the practices of academic teaching and research of a new generation. It inspired me to think creatively of ways I might encourage other scholars to make journeys of their own.”

Rabbi Belser will accept her award at a ceremony in Louisville on April 10.

About the Grawemeyer Awards

Each year the Grawemeyer Awards honor the power of creative ideas to improve our culture via music composition, education, religion, psychology, and world order. Business executive and family man H. Charles Grawemeyer established the awards in 1984 at the University of Louisville in collaboration with Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Academics and community members choose among nominees from around the world to ensure that each winning idea is relevant to society at large. The University of Louisville announces the winners in December and presents the awards at a ceremony the following April. Each award winner receives $100,000, which they may use, if they choose, to develop and accelerate the spread of their powerful ideas. Learn more at .

Reminiscent of an earlier era of political science, the wide-ranging work grapples with intellectual ideas that will have direct impact on the worlds of politics, policy, and government — such as the likely future of international order, with an emphasis on the competition between democracies and autocracies. Historically rich and sophisticated, its breadth spans international relations, political theory, and comparative politics.

“Political scientists have tended to analyze democratic longevity and crises in domestic terms,” said University of Louisville professor of political science and University Scholar Charles E. Ziegler, director of the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. “They generally look at internal economic structure, income levels, and a society’s cultural traits. Owen’s exposition of the role of the international ecosystem marks a major contribution to our understanding of world order.”

The Grawemeyer Award for World Order has been given annually since 1988. Professor Owen appreciates the influence of a number of past Grawemeyer Award winners, particularly 1989 winner Robert Keohane, whose “After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy” inspired Owen, then a Keohane advisee, to investigate the way international institutions work. In addition, 1992 winner Samuel Huntington, one of Owen’s graduate-school mentors, prompted Owen to attend to the waxing and waning global fortunes of democracy, as well as to international contagion.ĚýThe work of Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, winners in 2000 for “Activists beyond Borders,” showed Owen how transnational groups carry ideas and practices across national boundaries.

Owen will accept his award at a ceremony in Louisville on April 10.

About the Grawemeyer Awards

Each year the Grawemeyer Awards honor the power of creative ideas to improve our culture via music composition, education, religion, psychology, and world order. Business executive and family man H. Charles Grawemeyer established the awards in 1984 at the University of Louisville in collaboration with Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Academics and community members choose among nominees from around the world to ensure that each winning idea is relevant to society at large. The University of Louisville announces the winners in December and presents the awards at a ceremony the following April. Each award winner receives $100,000, which they may use, if they choose, to develop and accelerate the spread of their powerful ideas. Learn more at .

It was an opportunity for her to put her work in context for herself in a way she had never done before, Vrebalov, 53, told the audience at the University of Louisville on April 11.

Vrebalov, a Serbian-American composer who now resides in New York City, was awarded the 2024 for “‘.”

The Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, which was the first of the five , typically receives 150 to 200 entries each year from around the world.

The work’s Latin title translates to “Mass Above Words” in English. The nontraditional work, which is performed by string quartets and girls’ chorus, features just two words in English.

“Words are not essential,” she said. “And I will say again – words are not essential for us to understand, and have insight into the abstract concepts of creativity, truth, beauty and love. These concepts represent the mental aspects of human existence and transcend language.”

Kronos Quartet, a group long known for nurturing musical innovation, and San Francisco Girls’ Chorus, a Bay Area group for young women from diverse backgrounds, premiered the work in 2018 in San Francisco.

Following her presentation, the audience had the opportunity to fully take in “Missa Supratext” by listening to the 22-minute work, which includes handbells, Tibetan bowls and musical saw.

Vrebalov said through her music, she hopes to bring people together.

“It’s about my own yearning for a world that’s filled with love and a world in which we can experience connection and belonging,” she said.

 That’s why “Missa Supratext” deliberately has no recognizable language, she said.

“We have reached a point of realizing individual freedoms as never before in history, and at the same time, our communities are fragmenting into increasingly separate worlds that often exclude each other,” Vrebalov said.

Her idea – to create a work that forces people to confront human existence – inspired her to “bypass traditional language elements and focus on a nonverbal dramatic narrative.”

“Words move us, but music can move us in ways that are not always easy to explain because it doesn’t require language,” Vrebalov said.

The $100,000 Grawemeyer prizes also honor seminal ideas in ,Ěý,ĚýĚý˛š˛ÔťĺĚý. Winners visit Louisville to accept their awards and give free talks on their winning ideas.

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“I didn’t want it to be the same old stuff,” said Nelson, an assistant professor of Clarinet at the University of Louisville School of Music.

So, he spent a breakneck year selecting, researching, recording and mastering music that offered something new — a new timbre, a new technique, a new way of mimicking modern electronic sounds. The result is “: Works for Solo Clarinet.”

This is a premiere recording, so, “in a certain way, it’s all uncharted territory,” Nelson said. “This was a particularly forward-looking kind of recording project.”

The album is all contemporary music, including several recordings and work from four winners of the for music composition. Composers Kaija Saariaho, Karel Husa and Krzysztof Penderecki were all previous winners, and Bent Sorensen .

There were several complicated pieces, including one that required Nelson to borrow a special instrument with an extra note and learn all new finger configurations.

“They’re just very challenging pieces to get right,” he said. “And there’s nothing but me on these tracks, so it’s pretty revealing if something doesn’t sound right.”

The project was backed by a grant from the UofL Office of the Executive Vice President for Research and Innovation. Nelson said the grant funding allowed him to spend a “significant” amount of time in the studio recording, editing and mastering each track.

“This project is a great example of the innovative research going on across campus,” said Dr. Robert Keynton, interim EVPRI. “UofL strongly supports research and scholarly activity of our faculty from all schools, all departments across the campus community — they all are passionate about exploring and creating something new.”

There are other research projects at the UofL School of Music, several of which have received support from the EVPRI throughout the past few years. There’s a lot to explore, whether you’re working to discover little-known pieces of music or diving headfirst into uncharted waters.

Just recently, for example, Nelson said he was asked by a colleague to go into a sound booth with his clarinet and make as many sounds as he could, whether pleasant or not — hisses, sputters, off-notes. The plan is to take those and make them into something coherent.

“There are elements of history, innovation, music and math,” Nelson said. “All sorts of things are going on and it’s a very exciting field in that way — you can go in so many directions.”

Nelson said the album has so far been well-received. It is available on and , or you can stream it on or .