Karlton E. Hester and Roberto Sierra, members of the Cornell music faculty, have been selected as American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Award recipients.

ASCAP, based in New York City, represents 35,000 members in numerous countries and distributes royalties to its writer-members. It presents awards annually to artists who have demonstrated exceptional work in the past year. The awards, granted by an independent panel, are based upon the unique prestige value of each writer's catalog of original compositions. The amount of the cash award was not announced.

Hester, assistant professor of music and the Herbert Gussman Director of Jazz Studies at Cornell, is the composer of Symphonic Balledrama andSymphony Number One, for which he won grants from National Endowment for the Arts, and of the ballet A First World Romance, which was honored by the New England Council for the Arts. Hester has performed on flute and saxophone in major U.S. cities and abroad; he also is the author of the forthcoming Afrocentric Innovations Some Call Jazz: Vols. I and II. Hester, a former ASCAP Award winner, joined the Cornell faculty in 1991.

Sierra, considered one of Puerto Rico's most prolific composers, will premier a piece he wrote for the Camerata Chamber Orchestra this October at the Cervantine Festival in Mexico. He also is at work on a commission for the Phoenix Symphony to commemorate its 50th anniversary. Sierra'sTriptico was performed to rave reviews last month at the Bath (England) International Guitar Festival. Sierra, a past winner of ASCAP awards, has taught at Cornell since 1992.