GOLD MOUNTAIN Composer/Lyricist Jason Ma Receives 2017 ASCAP Foundation Cole Porter Award Today

Jason Ma has been named the recipient of the 2017 ASCAP Foundation Cole Porter Award, presented annually to an emerging composer/lyricist "whose work shows promise."

The presentation will be made at the 2017 ASCAP Foundation Honors Celebration today, December 14th. The annual invitation-only event will be held at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City.

Past recipients of the Cole Porter Award include, Peter Mills, Brett Ryback, and Sam Willmott.

Ma's musicAl Gold Mountain was presented at the 2016 ASCAP/DreamWorks Musical Theatre Workshop in Los Angeles and will be performed in its entirety in an upcoming concert starring Ali Ewoldt, directed by Alan Muraoka and produced by National Asian Artists Project in partnership with Prospect Theater Company as a part of Prospect's IGNITE series at TheTimesCenter on Saturday, October 21st at 8pm.

Gold Mountain is a love story set against the epic backdrop of a pivotal event in America's history, the construction of the first transcontinental railroad, and celebrates the striving immigrant spirit, the redemptive power of love and the ultimate nobility of self-sacrifice.

Gold Mountain was also selected for development by Apples & Oranges Studios for their 2017 THEatre ACCELERATOR, presented as a staged reading for San Francisco LaborFest 2016 at The Aurora Theatre, and received a 2017 eStudio grant for a workshop at The Masie Center this past summer.

Jason Ma has provided theater music for The Old Globe, Ma-Yi Theater Company, Leviathan Lab, and Ugly Rhino, and is the composer and co-lyricist for the full-length musical Barcelona, written with Christine Toy Johnson (book/co-lyricist). He is also an actor who has appeared in a number of productions on Broadway, as well as numerous regional, international and Off-Broadway productions.

Single tickets for the October concert are $25, $35 and $45, and may be obtained through online purchase at www.NAAProject.org or www.ProspectTheater.org or by calling 212-352-3101. Tickets, if available, may also be purchased at the door, beginning at 7pm on the night of the concert. The TimesCenter (www.TheTimesCenter.com) is located at 242 West 41st Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues, in the heart of NYC's Times Square District.