41st Annual ASCAP Deems Taylor Awards Announced

The American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers has announced the winners of the 41st Annual ASCAP Deems Taylor Awards for outstanding print, broadcast and new media coverage of music. The winners will be honored at a special invitation-only ceremony and reception on Tuesday, December 9, 2008 at The Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Allen Room, Broadway at 60th Street, New York City. Over the years, tens of thousands of dollars have been distributed in cash prizes to winning authors, journalists and
broadcast producers and personalities.

The ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award honors WRTI-FM (Philadelphia) for its outstanding Classical and Jazz music programming. Accepting awards for WRTI will be Dave Conant, Executive Director/Classical Host and Maureen Malloy, Jazz Music Director/Jazz Host.

A special ASCAP Deems Taylor Television Broadcast Award posthumously honors Fred Rogers, the creator and star of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," produced by Family Communications, Inc. 2008 marks the 40th anniversary of the classic children's show's debut and what would
have been the 80th birthday of Fred Rogers.

The ASCAP Deems Taylor Media Award honors "The End of Early Music: A Period Performer’s History of Music for the Twenty-First Century" (Oxford University Press) by Bruce Haynes, along with the book’s companion website,
http://www.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780195189872/?view=usa, designed by Norm Hirschy of Oxford University Press.

The Nicolas Slonimsky Award for Outstanding Musical Biography in the concert music field honors Kevin Bazzana for his book, "Lost Genius: The Curious and Tragic Story of an Extraordinary Musical Prodigy," published by Da Capo Press. This award was established to honor the memory of Slonimsky (1894 - 1995), the Russian-American composer, conductor, musicologist and critic. Slonimsky was the writer of "Baker’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns, The Lexicon of Musical Invective and Perfect Pitch," an autobiography.

The Béla Bartók Award for Outstanding Ethnomusicological Book honors the late Mirjana Lausevic for "Balkan Fascination: Creating an Alternative Music Culture in America," published by The Oxford University Press. This award honors the memory of Bartók (1881-1945), the great Hungarian-American composer and ethnomusicologist.

The authors and publishers of the nine books to be honored at the ceremony are:
-Ted Anthony for "Chasing the Rising Sun: The Journey of an American Song," published by Simon & Schuster
-Barry Day for "The Letters of Noël Coward," published by Alfred A. Knopf
-John Kruth for "To Live’s to Fly: The Ballad of the Late, Great Townes Van Zandt," published Da Capo Press
-Howard Pollack for "George Gershwin: His Life and Works," published by University of California Press
-bruce d. mcclung for "Lady in the Dark: Biography of a Musical," published by Oxford University Press
-Aniruddh D. Patel for "Music, Language and the Brain," published by Oxford University Press
-Alex Ross for "The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century," published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux
-Oliver Sacks for "Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain," published by Alfred A. Knopf
-Wilfrid Sheed for "The House That George Built: With a Little Help from Irving, Cole and a Crew of About Fifty," published by Random House

The seven writers and editors of journal, magazine and newspaper articles, and liner notes and their respective publishers to be honored are:
-John Nova Lomax for his article, "Doug Supernaw," published by The Houston Press
-Jorge Arévalo Mateus for his liner notes, "The Live Wire: Woody Guthrie in Performance 1949," released by Woody Guthrie Publications
-Paul A. Merkley for his article, "Stanley Hates This But I Like It!: North vs. Kubrick on the Music for 2001: A Space Odyssey," published by The Journal of Film Music
-James Parker for his articles, "From Her to Eternity: The real Nico emerges on The Frozen Borderline," "Heaven and Hell: Sir Paul Toodles off to Starbucks while Ozzy Goes to War," and "Endless Rhapsody: How Queen Trumped the Punks," published by The Boston Phoenix
-Ken Smith for his liner notes in the CD, "The Butterfly Lovers Concert for Violin, Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto," issued by Canary Classics
-Laurie Stras for her article, "White Face, Black Voice: Race, Gender, and Region in the Music of Boswell Sisters," published by Journal of the Society for American Music
-Rebecca Winzenried for her article, "How Brilliant," published by Symphony Magazine

The members of the ASCAP Deems Taylor Awards Judging Panel for 2008 are
Paul Moravec, Frank J. Oteri, Richard Miller, Julie Flanders, David
Massengill, Matthew Shipp, Daniel Felsenfeld, Pat Irwin and Wesley Stace.

About ASCAP
Established in 1914, ASCAP is the first and leading U.S. Performing Rights Organization (PRO) representing the world's largest repertory totaling over 8.5 million copyrighted musical works of every style and genre from more than 330,000 songwriter, composer and music publisher members. ASCAP has representation arrangements with similar foreign organizations so that the ASCAP repertory is represented in nearly every country around the world where copyright law exists. ASCAP protects the rights of its members and foreign affiliates by licensing the public performances of their copyrighted works and distributing royalties based upon surveyed
performances. ASCAP is the only American PRO owned and governed by its writer and publisher members. www.ascap.com

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