Biography of John Williams Wins Top Music Writing Honour From ASCAP Foundation
Tim Greiving's "John Williams: A Composer's Life" has won a Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Book Award in the concert music field, according to Variety, which reported the winners on 23 October 2026. The book is described as the first-ever biography of Williams, the composer behind the scores for many of Hollywood's best-known films.
The honours come from the ASCAP Foundation, the charitable arm of ASCAP, the American organisation that collects royalties for songwriters and composers. The Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Awards, now in their 77th year, recognise the best books, articles, liner notes and broadcast programmes about music. A committee of four judges chose this year's winners: Robbie Fulks, Julie Flanders, Carman Moore and Betsy Schramm.
Greiving's book was not the only Hollywood composer story to be honoured. Steven C. Smith received a special recognition award in the concert music book category for "Hitchcock and Herrmann: The Friendship and Film Scores that Changed Cinema." It is Smith's second book about Bernard Herrmann, the composer who worked with director Alfred Hitchcock on films including Psycho.
Other book winners covered very different ground. Lucy Caplan won a concert music book award for "Dreaming in Ensemble: How Black Artists Transformed American Opera." In the pop music field, Gayle Wald was honoured for "This Is Rhythm: Ella Jenkins, Children's Music, and the Long Civil Rights Movement," and James O'Leary for "The Middlebrow Musical: Between Broadway and Opera in 1940s America."
The broadcast and media awards spanned film, podcasts and video. Isaac Gale, Ryan Olson and David McMurry won the pop music award for the documentary "Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted," released in 2025. It follows Jerry "Swamp Dogg" Williams and the musicians who shared his house in Los Angeles. Gail Wein took the concert music prize for "Classical Gas," a 2025 podcast of interviews with classical musicians, produced by Classical Voice North America.
Rick Beato received a special recognition award in the concert broadcast category for "Everything Music," his 2025 YouTube series about music, technology and the issues facing people who make music.
For fans of album packaging, the Paul Williams "Loved the Liner Notes" Award went to percussionist Ruth Komanoff Underwood. She was honoured for her personal essay for "Cheaper than Cheep," a boxed set of a live 1974 concert film by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.
Journalism took several prizes too. Ben Sisario of The New York Times was recognised for a piece about efforts to rescue decaying master tapes, the original recordings that music is copied from. Max Keller, also of The New York Times, was honoured for an article about cellists debating how to hold their instruments. Esteban Meneses was recognised for a story about Mexican symphonic composers, and Gabriel Kahana won the outstanding music criticism award for a piece in The Atlantic.
The ASCAP Foundation has gathered this year's winners, along with other musicians, composers and songwriters who earned its awards and scholarships in 2025, into a digital yearbook titled "The ASCAP Foundation Honors 2025."
What stands out is the range. A biography of a film composer sits beside an opera history, a children's music study, a YouTube series and a tape-preservation story, all chosen by the same four judges. For anyone who has ever wondered who writes the words on the back of a record sleeve, or who decides which music deserves a book, this list offers a useful map.
