The Chapter awards the Lifetime Achievement Award to selected MACSEM members who have made significant contributions to the discipline of ethnomusicology, and to the Chapter itself.
In MACSEM's 25-year history, it has conferred four Lifetime Achievement Awards. Dr. Rose Brandel was the first recipient of this award. Alfred Gei Zantzinger, Carolina Robertson, and Barbara L. Hampton, all active in organizing MACSEM's first conference, were awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at MACSEM 2006.