This past Tuesday night, ASCAP held the annual Film & Television Music Awards, this year at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood. In addition to celebrating the top-grossing films and television shows of 2006, the Henry Mancini Award for Outstanding Career Achievement was given to composer Marc Shaiman.
For a full write-up of the evening\'s events, check out Jon Burlingame\'s article at The Film Music Society website.
The press release for the evening is presented here, below.
Los Angeles, CA, April 18, 2007: The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) presented its Henry Mancini Award to Marc Shaiman at the 22nd Annual ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards held last night (April 17) at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, California. In addition to honoring Shaiman, ASCAP also honored the composers and songwriters of the top box office film music and the most performed television music of 2006. Over 850 members of the music industry attended the invitation-only 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 special tribute to Marc Shaiman who was honored with the ASCAP Henry Mancini Award in recognition of his outstanding achievements and contributions to the music of film and television. Rob Reiner and Billy Crystal joined Marilyn Bergman onstage to present the award to Shaiman. Many other friends and collaborators paid homage by way of video tribute messages, including Matthew Broderick, Nathan Lane, Martin Short and Robin Williams, as well as John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer, Queen Latifah, Allison Janney and other cast members of the upcoming movie, Hairspray. Broadway actress Marissa Jaret Winokur performed \"Good Morning, Baltimore\" from the musical, Hairspray, accompanied by Shaiman on piano. Shaiman also performed \"Fifty Checks\" from his new musical, Catch Me If You Can.
Marc Shaiman has received five Academy Award nominations, a Tony, Grammy and Emmy Award. Irreverent, witty, energetic and optimistic, Shaiman is currently in the midst of a dream movie assignment – completing the film adaptation of his own Tony Award-winning musical, Hairspray, which was a smash reworking of John Waters\' original film. Though he\'s best-known for composing scores for mainstream Hollywood comedies – among them Sleepless in Seattle, Sister Act, The Addams Family, Patch Adams, City Slickers, George of the Jungle and In & Out – Shaiman\'s credits also include science fiction (From the Earth to the Moon for HBO), military drama (A Few Good Men), a baseball film (61* for HBO) and outrageous animation (South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut). He has worked frequently in films and TV with Rob Reiner, Billy Crystal and Bette Midler. Shaiman is primarily a composer and lyricist, but has also enjoyed success as an arranger, record producer, music supervisor and actor.
Past recipients of the ASCAP Henry Mancini Award, which was established in 1996, include: John Debney, Mark Isham, Quincy Jones, Michel Legrand, Randy Newman, James Newton Howard, Johnny Mandel, Alan Silvestri, Howard Shore and Hans Zimmer.
ASCAP\'s Todd Brabec, Nancy Knutsen, Sue Devine and Mike Todd 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. Those in attendance included John Adair, Erran Baron Cohen (PRS), Joel Beckerman, Sean Callery, Jeff Cardoni, Adam Cohen, Lisa Coleman, Catherine Dennis (PRS), Ramin Djawadi, Rob Duncan, Marc Fantini, Steffan Fantini, Steve Franks, Grant Geissman, Scott Gordon, Alex Greenwald, Andrea Guerra (SIAE), Matthew Hawkins, Reinhold Heil, John Keane, Johnny Klimek, Russ Landau, Michael Levine, Wendy Melvoin, Blake Neely, David Nichtern, John O\'Brien, Daniel Pinnella, Douglas Pipes, David Porter, John Powell, Mark Snow, David Vanacore, Franz Vonlichten, Helmut Vonlichten, Mark T Williams, and John Robert Wood. Ginny Mancini collected an award on behalf of her late husband, Henry Mancini, for the original theme to The Pink Panther
Also in attendance were: actor, director, writer, musician, and composer Christopher Guest; actor, writer, producer Sacha Baron Cohen and actress Isla Fisher; actress Nikki Blonsky, who stars in the new film version of Hairspray, along with the film\'s director Adam Shankman, producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron and music supervisor Matt Sullivan; singer/actress Jenifer Lewis; E! Entertainment\'s Debbie Matenopoulos, director Peyton Reed and TV actress Arlene Sorkin.
Click here for the complete list of winners.