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ASCAP raises the curtain on its second virtual celebration of annual award winners today through June 25, recognizing its top film, television and video game composers as recipients of 2020 ASCAP Screen Music Awards.

The accolades will take place with the hashtag #ASCAPAwards on ASCAP’s Facebook, Twitter, and on Instagram @ASCAP and @ASCAPScreen. Each winner will be honored in a post that enables fans, friends and peers to join in congratulating the music creators that bring their favorite onscreen entertainment to life. ASCAP will share exclusive photos and videos from the winning composers — and special celebrity guests — as part of the event.

Top Box Office Film goes to Hans Zimmer for The Lion King.

Other Top Box Office winners include Pinar Toprak (Captain Marvel), who will appear on video on ASCAP social media providing a tour of her home studio, and Lorne Balfe (Gemini Man), who created a special video documenting the receipt of his award.

A week after ASCAP gave out its pop awards, the performing rights organization rolled out another round of kudos with the ASCAP Screen Music Awards for composers, announced online Tuesday morning as the kickoff to a two-day online event taking place in lieu of the org’s usual black-tie dinner in Beverly Hills as a result of ongoing quarantining.

Hans Zimmer won the trophy for top box office film for scoring the blockbuster remake of “The Lion King.” In television, the award for most performed themes and underscore went to David Vanacore, whose most-heard work of the year included “Survivor” and “Deal or No Deal.” Siddhartha Khosla, of “This Is Us” fame, won for top network television series.

Although those awards represent acclaim represented in sheer commercial numbers, ASCAP also polls its composer and songwriter members to give out three peer-voted awards. In the Composer’s Choice categories, John Powell...

The Giants and the Patriots will meet on the field at Super Bowl Xlvi, but when NBC goes to commercial, John Williams will meet dubstep and other modern music styles. Video: Best Super Bowl Commercials 2011 Intending to reflect the epic nature of this NFL championship, a rematch of the 2008 Super Bowl, NBC commissioned composer Joel Beckerman to create an orchestral-rock hybrid of Williams' 2006 piece "Wide Receiver" for use during the game. Using a rock rhythm section and a 45-piece orchestra -- 90 percent of the musicians were from the New York Philharmonic -- Beckerman recorded a new

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Neuroscientists have found how brainwaves can predict hit songs, but listen (below) to actual music made from neuro feedback, and you'll understand why experts think the pop charts will remain mindless for decades to come.

David Lewis-Hodgson, chairman and research director at UK-based Mindlab International, is using his "mind and body" machine to make music for brains.

"What we do is wire up volunteers with equipment that records a variety of biometric and neurometric responses," he tells Fast Company--eeg machines, Edr (skin resistance) units, monitors for heart rate, respiration, skin temperature, and more. Then he and his team elicit known responses to stimuli--a nice smell or good taste, for example--and feed reaction signals into specialized equipment and software that converts all of the input into music and even indicates what instruments should be used when. "Depending on the activity being followed, for example meditative states, a taste or an aroma,...

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1. Spotify

The dominant source for free, legal, anytime, anywhere music. Scared yet, iTunes? Top 50 No. 15

2. Apple Corps

The Beatles' label cracked open its Abbey Road vault to collaborate on The Beatles: Rock Band and a remastered catalog for a new generation of Fab Four fans. The group may have broken up 40 years ago, but it sold 3.28 million albums in 2009 -- without digital downloads.

3. Man Made Music

Whether he's recruiting John Legend to sing U2's "Pride" for the History Channel's Mlk Jr. special, helping make Morgan Freeman the voice of CBS News, or sonically rebranding CNBC, Joel Beckerman says he's telling stories through sound -- and growing his company 200%.

4. Vevo

Backed by Universal, Sony, Abu Dhabi Media, and YouTube's infrastructure, Vevo is on its way to becoming the Hulu of music videos.

5. Antares Audio Technologies

Invented in...

It's one thing to pen a jingle. "I'm telling stories," says Joel Beckerman, the award-winning founder and President of Man Made Music. The idea is that sounds--from the lowliest chime to the most intricate composition, like Beckerman's rework of the NBC Nightly News theme with its original award-winning composer John Williams--evoke emotions and memories and help create narratives.

Beckerman's done that by connecting the Black Eyed Peas and their so-bad-it's-unforgettable "I Gotta Feeling" with CBS, who has the song on heavy rotation during all sorts of promos. He enlisted six-time Grammy winner John Legend (above) to stunningly cover U2's "Pride (In the Name of Love)" for The History Channel's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. documentary, King.

"There was a moment when I paused, realizing the enormity of taking on such a great, classic, signature song, but John really rose to the occasion," Beckerman says. "As far as I know,...