Celebrity guests present the Marvin Hamlisch International Music Awards at Queens College

The Island Now
Queens College Interim President William Tramontano and lifestyle expert Martha Stewart celebrate the launch of the Marvin Hamlisch International Music Awards at Queens College, on Monday, November 18, at LeFrak Concert Hall. (Photo provided by Queens College)

Marvin Hamlisch, who graduated from Queens College in 1967, is among the most celebrated composers in American history, having earned a combined total of 14 Academy, Grammy, Emmy, Tony, and Golden Globe Awards, as well as a Pulitzer Prize.

In 2013, a year after Hamlisch’s death, the Marvin Hamlisch Film Scoring Contest was established to discover and encourage young and emerging composers from around the world. Presented by the Council on International Nontheatrical Events, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization, the contest has recognized hundreds of composers to date.

In a new partnership with Queens College, the contest was launched as the Marvin Hamlisch International Music Awards — with three new composition categories in classical, jazz, and musical theater — in a ceremony and concert on Monday, Nov. 18, at 7 pm, at the college’s LeFrak Concert Hall.

Among the celebrity presenters who acknowledged the winners of the 2019 film scoring contest, as well as recipients of the college’s Marvin Hamlisch Scholarship, were award-winning theater, film, and television actor Brian D’Arcy James; award-winning actor and comedian Robert Klein; actress Marisa McGowan — whom Hamlisch personally selected to star in his last musical, “The Nutty Professor”; former “Late Show with David Letterman” Musical Director Paul Shaffer; lifestyle expert Martha Stewart; and Major League Baseball’s Chief Baseball Officer and former New York Yankees Manager Joe Torre

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