Last night, composers and people from all aspects of the film music industry converged in Beverly Hills to attend the annual BMI Film & Television Music Awards. Celebrating the composers and songwriters who wrote music from the past year’s top-grossing films, top-rated prime-time network television series and highest-ranking cable network programs, the black-tie gala was hosted by BMI President & CEO Del Bryant and Film/TV Relations Vice President Doreen Ringer Ross.

After a cocktail reception and dinner, where much networking, schmoozing and chatting took place, the awards were handed out. Theodore Shapiro and Pete Townshend each took home three awards (Shapiro for The Devil Wears Prada, Blades of Glory and You, Me and Dupree; Townshend for "CSI"," CSI: Miami" and "CSI: NY"). Teddy Castalucci, Charlie Clouser, Rupert Gregson-Williams, Gustavo Santaolalla, Aaron Zigman, James S. Levine, John Ottman, Jeff Beal, Rolfe Kent, Daniel Licht, Bruce Hanifan, Mark Mancina and many others also took home the crystal awards.

The two big awards of the evening were presented at the end of the show: The Classic Contribution Award was given to conductor/composer Lucas Richman, for his ten years of service leading BMI’s celebrated Conductor’s Workshop, and the BMI Richard Kirk Award for Outstanding Career Achievement was given to composer George S. Clinton. A video was shown of Richman\'s efforts training many of the evening\'s winners how to conduct (from years past), and a rather amusing shot of Starr Parodi\'s conducting baton flying out of her hand earned laughter from the attendees.

The tribute to George S. Clinton began with a humor-laced video that included anecdotes and comments from many of his collaborators, including Cheech Marin (Cheech & Chong\'s The Corsican Brothers), Yves Simoneau (Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee), Jay Roach (Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery) and others - even funkmaster George Clinton made an appearance! Del Bryant read two telegrams of congratulations to George from Quincy Jones and Mike Meyers, and in his acceptance speech, Clinton was gracious and funny, and made sure to thank his collaborators in "Team Clinton". He even had the entire audience join in singing "Happy Birthday" to orchestrator Suzie Katayama. (No word on whether performance royalties would be paid for that!)


BMI\'s Del Bryant, George S. Clinton and Doreen Ringer-Ross