New York, NY, September 11, 2008: The American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers (ASCAP) will honor composer David Lang with the ASCAP Pulitzer Crystal Award and add his winning score to ASCAP's Pulitzer gallery at the organization's New York City offices at a special luncheon hosted by ASCAP President & Chairman Marilyn Bergman on Thursday, September 18, 2008.
The ASCAP Pulitzer Crystal Award honors ASCAP members who receive the Pulitzer Prize in Music. Lang's choral work,
The Little Match Girl Passion, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize earlier this year. The work, co-commissioned by the Carnegie Hall Corporation and The Perth Theater and Concert Hall (UK), and premiered October 25, 2007 by Paul Hillier's Theatre of Voices in Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, was inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's story,
The Little Match Girl.
Lang is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including the Rome Prize, the BMW Music-Theater Prize (Munich), and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1999 he received a Bessie Award for his music for choreographer Susan Marshall's The Most Dangerous Room in the House, performed live by the Bang on a Can All-Stars at the Next Wave Festival of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The Carbon Copy Building won the 2000 Village Voice OBIE Award for Best New American Work.
Lang is co-founder and co-artistic director of New York's legendary music festival, Bang on a Can. His work is recorded on the Sony Classical, Teldec, BMG, Point, Chandos, Argo/Decca, Caprice, CRI and Cantaloupe labels.
The Concert will be preceded at 7:00 p.m. by the Jazz Issue Forum, which will examine the demise of the International Association of Jazz Educators (IAJE) and the new possibilities for institutional development that lie in its wake. Panelists will include Dr. Larry Ridley (Exec. Director, African American Jazz Caucus and Co-chair of the Jazz Research Institution), Connaitre Miller (Director, Howard University Afro Blue Jazz Chorale), and Jackie Harris (Exec. Director, The Louis Armstrong Jazz Camp). The one-hour discussion will be broadcast live on WPFW, 89.3 FM.
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 over 100 similar foreign organizations such that the ASCAP repertory is represented in nearly every country around the world. 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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