Eighth Annual ASCAP Foundation Awards

Composer Charles Strouse, ASCAP Foundation Executive Director Karen Sherry and ASCAP Foundation Richard Rodgers Award recipient Lee Adams.

Pulitzer Prize winning composer Ned Rorem, who turned 80 earlier this year, received the ASCAP Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award in Concert Music. His works include Poems of Love and the Rain, Sun, Letters from Paris, String Symphony, Goodbye My Fancy, Spring Music, and the Pulitzer-winning Air Music. Rorem is particularly renowned for his art songs, including the song cycle, Evidence of Things Not Seen. In addition, Rorem is celebrated as an author, memoirist and educator. Rorem’s friend and fellow composer John Corigliano made the presentation. Tenor Scott Murphree paid musical tribute to Rorem with the performance of two of the composer’s art songs.

Songwriter George David Weiss has enjoyed success on the pop, country and R&B charts, as well as in the areas of musical theater and film. Weiss’s catalog includes such standards as “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” “Lullaby of Birdland,” “Wheel of Fortune,” “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” “Oh, What It Seemed to Be,” “Mr. Wonderful,” “Let’s Put It All Together,” “Too Close for Comfort,” and “What a Wonderful World.” Weiss’s Broadway hits include Mr. Wonderful and First Impressions. He has also been active in the fight to protect the rights of music creators as a past president of the Songwriters Guild of America. Songwriting great Jimmy Webb presented the award to Weiss as entertainer David Johansen performed two of Weiss’s biggest hits: “Lullaby of Birdland” and “What a Wonderful World.”