New York, NY, December 6, 2006: The ASCAP Foundation honored composer Marvin Hamlisch with the Richard Rodgers Award during its 11th Annual Awards Ceremony this evening at The Allen Room, 6th Floor, Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City.
The Richard Rodgers Award was established by Dorothy Rodgers, widow of Richard, to recognize a veteran composer or lyricist of musical theatre for a lifetime of achievement in this great American art form. The Rodgers Family Foundation funds the program.
Mr. Rodgers, together with his main collaborators, Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II, wrote such Broadway classics as
Pal Joey, Oklahoma!, Carousel, The King and I and
The Sound of Music.
Marvin Hamlisch's award-winning musical career is marked both by diversity and substance. The recipient of three Academy Awards, a Tony, four Emmys, four Grammys and the Pulitzer Prize, Hamlisch has excelled in musical theatre, film and television music and writing for the Pop music charts. New York City native Hamlisch wrote the Academy Award-winning score for
The Way We Were, and with lyricists Marilyn and Alan Bergman, wrote the film's Oscar winning title song. His third Academy Award was for his adaptation of Scott Joplin Ragtime music for the score of
The Sting. Hamlisch's performance of Joplin's "The Entertainer" from the soundtrack topped the charts. Hamlisch's Broadway musicals include
They're Playing Our Song (co-written with Carole Bayer Sager) and
A Chorus Line (co-written with Ed Kleban) - the Tony-winning
A Chorus Line also was honored with the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The show's original run, from 1975 - 1990, lasted nearly 15 years and over 6000 performances. Last month,
A Chorus Line returned to Broadway in a new production.
ASCAP Foundation President Marilyn Bergman said, "It is with great pleasure that we honor Marvin Hamlisch with The ASCAP Foundation Richard Rodgers Award. He is a valued friend and collaborator and it is fitting that this brilliant musician, composer and conductor be recognized with this award. His achievements in the musical theatre have been honored with Tonys and a Pulitzer Prize, and the new Broadway production of
A Chorus Line is thrilling a whole new generation of theatre goers."
To celebrate the award to Hamlisch, there were performances of Hamlisch songs from
The Sweet Smell of Success (Brian d'Arcy James),
A Chorus Line (Liz Callaway) and
The Way We Were (Alan Bergman).
Another of the evening's major awards was the Richard Rodgers New Horizons Award, which recognizes emerging musical theatre talent. This year the award honored the lyricist/composer team of Michael Korie and Scott Frankel, who are currently enjoying their first Broadway musical hit with
Grey Gardens. Christine Ebersole, who stars in the show, was on hand to help honor Korie and Frankel with a performance from the musical.
Other performance highlights featured Robert Allen Award recipient Rosi Golan, Young Jazz Composer Award honorees Remy and Pascal Le Boeuf, and 12 year-old Conrad Tao, who was among the youngest recipients of the 2006 Morton Gould Young Composer Awards.
A list of the evening's honorees follows:
Robert Allen Award
Rosi Golan
Harold Arlen Film & TV Award
Aaron Sapp
Louis Armstrong Scholarships
Michael MacAllister and Charles Dexter Brewer
Louis Armstrong Scholarship in honor of Duke Ellington
Nicholas DePinna
Louis Armstrong Scholarship in honor of W.C. Handy
Errol Brown, Gabriel Felippe and Howard Meadows
Charlotte V. Bergen Scholarship
Jay Greenberg
Irving Berlin Summer Camp Scholarship
The Walden School
Leonard Bernstein Composer Fellowship at Tanglewood
Timothy Andres
Boosey & Hawkes Young Composer Award
in honor of Aaron Copland
Melanie Charles
Leon Brettler Award
Andy Davis
Irving Burgie Scholarship
Janet Onyenucheya
Irving Caesar Scholarship Program
Third Street Music School Settlement
Sammy Cahn Award
John Francis
Fran Morgenstern Davis Scholarship
Damien Pacheco and Margaret Peterson
John Denver Music Camp Scholarships
Zachary Cook, Mary O'Donovan, Alexandria Pena and Khelsy Raymond
Louis Dreyfus Warner/Chappell City College Scholarship
in honor of
George & Ira Gershwin
Shogo Samata
Max Dreyfus Scholarship
Kevin Cummines
Fellowship for Composition & Film Scoring
Micah Hayes
Ira Gershwin Scholarship
Hannah Sun
Morton Gould Young Composer Leo Kaplan Award
Brian Herrington
Morton Gould Young Composer Award
Conrad Tao
Jerry Herman Legacy Series Scholarship
Eldric Bashful, Zonya Love Johnson, Kaitlynn Kleinman, Amanda Kuchinski, Dylan Morris and Arthur Ross
Steve Kaplan TV & Film Studies Scholarship
Brian Byrne
Leiber & Stoller Music Scholarship
Brian Kim and Mathew Harwich
Livingston & Evans Music Scholarship
Enrique Conde
Frederick Loewe Scholarship
Will Aronson
Michael Masser Scholarship
Allison Jones and Simon Wiskowski
Henry Mancini Music Scholarship
Ulf Anneken, Jonathan Beard, Jeremy Levy, Kyle Simpson, Zhou Tian, Joseph Trapanese and Marianne Trudel
Rudolph Nissim Prize
Jeffrey Hass
Rudy Perez Songwriting Scholarship
David E. Ramos
Richard Rodgers New Horizons Award
Scott Frankel and Michael Korie
David Rose Scholarship
Kentaro Sato
Young Jazz Composer Awards
Pascal Le Boeuf and Remy Le Boeuf
About The ASCAP Foundation
Founded in 1975, The ASCAP Foundation is a charitable organization dedicated to supporting American music creators and encouraging their development through music education and talent development programs. Included in these are songwriting workshops, grants, scholarships, awards, recognition and community outreach programs, and public service projects for senior composers and lyricists. The ASCAP Foundation is supported by contributions from ASCAP members and from music lovers throughout the United States.
www.ascapfoundation.org
