ASCAP Honors Top Film and Television Composers at 20th Annual Awards Celebration; John Debney Receives The ASCAP Henry Mancini Award for Outstanding Achievement.

NEW YORK -- 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