Corigliano-FJO

Corigliano and Over 130 Other Music Creators Honored at ASCAP Foundation Awards

More than 130 music creators were honored during the 2014 ASCAP Foundation Awards, including John Corigliano who received the first-ever ASCAP Foundation Masters Award.

Written By

Frank J. Oteri

Frank J. Oteri is an ASCAP-award winning composer and music journalist. Among his compositions are Already Yesterday or Still Tomorrow for orchestra, the "performance oratorio" MACHUNAS, the 1/4-tone sax quartet Fair and Balanced?, and the 1/6-tone rock band suite Imagined Overtures. His compositions are represented by Black Tea Music. Oteri is the Vice President of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) and is Composer Advocate at New Music USA where he has been the Editor of its web magazine, NewMusicBox.org, since its founding in 1999.

Corigliano in Purple Jacket with several people in the background in JALC's Appel Room

John Corigliano shortly after the close of the 2014 ASCAP Foundation Awards Ceremony. (Guitarist Sharon Isbin and ASCAP’s Fran Richard can be seen in the background to Corigliano’s left and right respectively.) Photo by FJO.

John Corigliano has been awarded the first-ever ASCAP Foundation Masters Award. ASCAP President Paul Williams’s presentation of the award to Corigliano, which was followed by a performance of his short string quartet Snapshot Circa 1909 by the Aeolus Quartet, was the culmination of the ASCAP Foundation’s 19th Annual Awards Ceremony, which was held on December 10 at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s recently renamed Appel Room (formerly the Allen Room) and Ertegun Atrium in the Time Warner Building in New York City. Over 130 honorees—spanning composers writing for symphony orchestra and chamber ensembles, jazz groups, musical theatre, film and television, as well as rock, R&B, and country songwriters—were celebrated during the three-hour event. Due to time considerations many of this year’s awards were distributed in advance of the formal ceremony, but all of the winners’ names were projected during the event and also appeared in the official program, among them the recipients of the 2014 Morton Gould Young Composer Awards and Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Awards who had been additionally honored in ceremonies earlier this year. (A complete list of all the 2014 winners can be found here.)
Corigliano has had just about every major accolade a composer can receive—a Pulitzer Prize (for his Symphony No. 2 for string orchestra), a Grawemeyer Award (for his Symphony No. 1 which he wrote in response to the AIDS epidemic during his tenure as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s first composer-in-residence), an Oscar (for his score for the film The Red Violin), and three Grammys (for Symphony No. 1, his String Quartet, and Mr. Tambourine Man, a song-cycle which features newly composed music to lyrics for even classic Bob Dylan songs), as well as a commission from the Metropolitan Opera (for The Ghosts of Versailles which had been the Met’s first commission in more than two decades). Yet it was clear from his demeanor on stage as well as his comments that he was deeply moved and humbled to receive this award. “I might live to be 100 and be an antique but I never thought I’d be a master,” Corigliano opined. The audience responded with a standing ovation.

Corigliano talking with Williams onstage in JALC's Appel Room with a backdrop projection featuring a photo of Corigliano

Paul Williams (right) presenting the ASCAP Foundation Masters Award to John Corigliano. Photo by Michael Spudic of ASCAP.

Esteban Castro, a 12-year-old jazz composer and pianist who was one of this year’s Alpert winners, wowed the ceremony’s attendees in a performance with his trio. Equally impressive was a performance by The JT Project, this year’s recipients of the “Reach Out and Touch” Award in honor of Nick Ashford, which was presented by the late songwriter’s life and artistic partner Valerie Simpson. At first the group’s co-leader Jacob Webb attempted to perform on his electronic keyboard, but after being unable to coax any sound out of it (the technicians had not completely plugged in one of the cables), he moved over to the piano out of which he coaxed an Alice Coltrane-like relentless stream of tremolos inspiring saxophonist and co-leader Todd Schefflin to veer from more mainstream David Sanborn-sounding material to passionate riffs worthy of John Coltrane during his final freeform years as bassist Ross Alston maintained a steady groove and Nathan Webb fashioned a throbbing yet melodic counterpoint on the drums. Steven Lutvak, the 2014 Richard Rodgers New Horizons Awardee, offered some comic relief accompanying cast members Catherine Walker, Lisa O’Hara, and Bryce Pinkham from the piano in a trio from his humorous 2014 Tony Award-winning Broadway musical A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. Their performance was a testimony to their dedication to Lutvak and his score—they had just performed a matinee and needed to get back to the theatre for an additional performance later in the evening.

Photo by Scott Wintrow/Gamut Photos, courtesy ASCAP.

Jacob Webb (at the piano) and Todd Schefflin (saxophone) of the JT Project performing at the 2014 ASCAP Foundation Awards Ceremony. Photo by Scott Wintrow/Gamut Photos, courtesy ASCAP.

Among the other award winners honored were composer Rona Siddiqui to whom Stephen Schwartz presented the Mary Rodgers/Lorenz Hart Award for her musical One Good Day written with lyricist Liz Suggs (who could not be present), composer Deborah Abramson and lyricist Amanda Yesnowitz who received the 2014 Jamie deRoy & Friends Award (presented by deRoy) for their ongoing musical theater collaborations.

Rupert Holmes (right) receiving the 2014 ASCAP Foundation George M. Cohan Award made possible by the Friars Foundation. The award presenter is Jennifer Ross, great-granddaughter of Cohan. Photo by Scott Wintrow/Gamut Photos, courtesy ASCAP.

Rupert Holmes (right) receiving the 2014 ASCAP Foundation George M. Cohan Award made possible by the Friars Foundation. The award presenter is Jennifer Ross, great-granddaughter of Cohan. Photo by Scott Wintrow/Gamut Photos, courtesy ASCAP.

2014 Pulitzer Prize finalist Christopher Cerrone was presented by Leonard Bernstein’s daughter Jamie Bernstein with the ASCAP Foundation Leonard Bernstein Award. (An additional Bernstein honoree, Arlington, Virginia-born and currently Aberdeen, Scotland-based Sarah Rimkus, could not be present to receive her award.) Rupert Holmes, recipient of the 2014 George M. Cohan Award (which was presented to him by Cohan’s great-granddaughter Jennifer Ross), brought down the house when he acknowledged that despite being the first person ever to receive the Tony Award for best music, best lyrics, and best book (for his Broadway musical The Mystery of Edwin Drood), as well as arranging and conducting platinum albums for Barbra Streisand and writing three highly acclaimed novels (including The McMasters Guide to Homicide: Murder Your Employer), most people still think of him first and foremost for the Billboard No. 1 single that spanned two decades (because, he pointed out, it was on top of the chart in both December 1979 and January 1980)—“The Pina Colada Song,” which of course he then performed.

Photo by Scott Wintrow/Gamut Photos, courtesy ASCAP.

2014 deRoy Awardees Deborah Abramson (left) and Amanda Yesnowitz (right) with Jamie deRoy (center). Photo by Scott Wintrow/Gamut Photos, courtesy ASCAP.