Mark Snow Receives The ASCAP Golden Note Award; Special Celebration Marks the Centennial of Legendary Songwriter and Composer Harold Arlen
The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) presented
its Henry Mancini Award to John Debney and its Golden Note Award to Mark Snow
at the 20th Annual ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards gala held on Wednesday,
April 27, 2005 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. In
addition to honoring Debney and Snow, ASCAP honored the composers of the biggest
box office film music and the most performed television music of 2004, and celebrated
the Centennial of legendary songwriter and composer Harold Arlen. Over 750 members
of the music industry elite attended the event, which was hosted by Academy-Award
winning lyricist and President and Chairman of ASCAP, Marilyn Bergman.
One of the many highlights of the evening was the presentation of the ASCAP
Henry Mancini Award to Academy-Award nominee and three-time Emmy winner John
Debney in recognition of his outstanding achievements and contributions to the
music of film and television.
Debney is one of the most sought after composers in Hollywood and has proven
his versatility with over 50 feature films to his credit, encompassing a wide
variety of box office hits, including Bruce Almighty, Elf, Raising Helen, The
Princess Diaries, his most critically acclaimed and Oscar nominated score The
Passion of The Christ, and current releases The Pacifier and Sin City.
Director, actor and choreographer Adam Shankman, who collaborated with Debney
on the recent hit The Pacifier, joined Marilyn Bergman on stage to present the
award to Debney, who is the youngest composer to receive this honor.
Past recipients of the ASCAP Henry Mancini Award include Quincy Jones, Michel
Legrand, Johnny Mandel, Randy Newman, James Newton Howard, Howard Shore, Alan
Silvestri, and Hans Zimmer.
Another highlight of the evening was the presentation of the ASCAP Golden Note
Award to Mark Snow in recognition of his unprecedented success over the past
twenty years as one of the most versatile and popular composers in television
and film.
Snow's status as one of today's most innovative and successful film and television
composers is only the latest element of a far-reaching and eclectic career in
music. The award-winning and Julliard-trained musician, best known for his theme
and scores for the X-Files and Millennium, has composed music for hundreds of
TV-movies and television series including The Twilight Zone, Cagney & Lacey,
Hart to Hart, Starsky & Hutch, The Guardian and Smallville.
On hand to pay tribute to Snow were producer, director and writer Frank Spotnitz
(The X-Files, Millennium, Harsh Realm), Hart To Hart co-star and star of a new
theatre production of The King & I, Stefanie Powers, and Debney's sister-in-law
and co-star of the long-running TV hit, Cagney and Lacy, Tyne Daly.
Snow has received awards every year at the ASCAP Film and Television Music
Awards since their inception in 1986, and now joins a select group of songwriters
and composers who have received the ASCAP Golden Note Award including Stevie
Wonder, Andre Previn, Jay-Z, Garth Brooks, Sean "P.Diddy" Combs, Jose
Feliciano, Alan Jackson, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Elton John and Tom Petty.
The evening also celebrated the Centennial of legendary songwriter and composer
Harold Arlen with the special presentation of a commemorative plaque to Arlen's
son, Sam, and Sam's wife Joan. As part of the celebration, Sam, a saxophonist
who has recently released a CD entitled Arlen Plays Arlen, performed one of
his father's classic hits, "Stormy Weather." Sam and Joan recently
established a scholarship through The ASCAP Foundation to help further the careers
of composers and songwriters in both film and television music and musical theatre.
Arlen was a distinguished member of ASCAP for 56 years, and served on the Board
of Directors from 1969 to 1975. As one of the most significant songwriters of
the modern era, Harold Arlen composed such memorable tunes as "Over the
Rainbow," "Stormy Weather," "It's Only a Paper Moon,"
"I Gotta Right to Sing the Blues," "A Sleepin' Bee," and
"Come Rain Or Come Shine." During his extraordinary career, Harold
collaborated with such celebrated lyricists as Ira Gershwin, Johnny Mercer,
E.Y. "Yip" Harburg, Ted Koehler, Dorothy Fields and Truman Capote,
creating true classics that have been recorded by every major artist - and today
are among the best-known songs in the world.
ASCAP also presented awards in four categories -- Most Performed Themes, Most
Performed Underscore, Top Television Series, and Top Box Office Films -- to
several veteran film and television music composers as well as to the best and
brightest of a new generation of writers. ASCAP composers in attendance included
Jack Allocco, Marco Beltrami, Jeff Cardoni, Frank Catanzara, Dan Foliart, Grant
Geissmn, Michael Giacchino, Jeff Gibbs, Reinhold Heil, Johnny Klimek, David
Kurtz, Russ Landau, Michael Levine, Rick Marotta, Gregor Narholtz (GEMA), Atli
Ovarsson, Michael Skloff, Alan Silvestri, and David Vanacore.
For a complete list of winners please visit www.ascap.com
About ASCAP
Established in 1914, ASCAP is the first and leading Performing Rights Organization
in the U.S., representing the world's largest repertory which totals over 8
million copyrighted musical works of every style and genre from more than 200,000
composer, lyricist and music publisher members. Additionally, ASCAP represents
the works in the repertories of 70 affiliated foreign performing rights organizations
created by many thousand affiliated international members. ASCAP is committed
to protecting the rights of its members by licensing and collecting royalties
for the public performance of their copyrighted works, and then distributing
these fees to the Society's members based on performances. Unlike the other
American Performing Rights Organizations, ASCAP's Board of Directors is made
up solely of writers and publishers, elected by the membership every two years.
www.ascap.com
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