For the seventh time since their arrival as members of Cornell University's music faculty, Karlton E. Hester and Roberto Sierra each have garnered an award from the American Society of Composers, Publishers and Authors (ASCAP).

ASCAP, based in New York, represents 35,000 members in numerous countries and distributes royalties to its writer-members. It presents annual awards to artists who demonstrate exceptional work. The awards, granted by an independent panel, are based on the quality of each writer's catalog of original compositions. The amount of this year's cash ward was not announced.

Hester is an assistant professor of music and the Herbert Gussman Director of Jazz Studies at Cornell. He has performed on flute and saxophone throughout the United States and abroad. Included in his repertoire are such works as Symphonic Balledrama and Symphony Number One, for which he won grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. Some of his more recent works are in his Afrocentric Innovations Some Call Jazz: Vols. I and II. He joined the Cornell faculty in 1991.

Sierra, professor of music, is one of Puerto Rico's most prolific composers, and his works are currently in the repertoire of several major orchestras here and abroad. This year, his Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra premiered in both Los Angeles and Scotland. Sierra currently is working on several commissions, including a concerto for orchestra to honor the 100th anniversary of the Philadelphia Orchestra, to be performed in its 2000-01 season. He joined the Cornell faculty in 1992.