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Press Release - October 19th, 2004
ALI MATTHEWS WINS 2 CGMA COVENANT AWARDS INCLUDING
INSPIRATIONAL ALBUM OF THE YEAR
Stratford singer-songwriter Ali Matthews, a newcomer to the Canadian Gospel Music Association, received a warm welcome at the 26th Annual CGMA Covenant Award ceremony on Saturday (Oct 16th). She headed to Toronto with five nominations and when the evening was over, Matthews had not one, but two Covenant Awards in hand.Early in the show, with two of Matthews’ songs nominated for Country/Bluegrass Song of the Year, Ali's Hunger Mountain took the Award. Matthews and her co-producer, guitarist Rick Francis performed the song in the second half of the show to an enthusiastic audience.
The big surprise came with the Award for Inspirational Album of the Year which went to Matthews’ album, “Where You Remain”.
“I was sure I had no chance of winning this one”, Matthews reflects. Fellow nominees included multi-Juno Award winner, Steve Bell along with 5-time Juno nominee Kelita, 4given and Tabitha Lemaire. “There was an incredible wealth of talent and accomplishment represented among the nominees for this category”, Ali says. “I was absolutely stunned when they opened the envelope and announced my name as the winner.”
“The Covenant Awards are recognized as Canada's Christian music industry Standard Awards.” states CGMA President Gary Dix. Awards were handed out in nineteen categories including Rap/Hip Hop/Dance, Urban, Contemporary Gospel, Country/Bluegrass/Southern Gospel, Praise & Worship, Inspirational, Pop Contemporary & Modern Rock Alternative.
“I was nominated along with very well-known and successful Canadian artists, states Matthews. These are artists who are touring internationally, selling thousands of CD's from coast to coast and receiving a lot of radio airplay. I was the big 'unknown'. My CD's have not been distributed nationally and Christian radio doesn't know me. I had people coming up to me all night asking, 'Why have I never heard of you before?'. I was just so pleased that my CD was judged based on the merit of the music itself and not on radio success or sales figures.”
Not surprisingly, the 2 wins have sparked a flurry of activity for Matthews with the buzz of her success filtering through Christian radio stations across the country. She is currently entering into a 2-album national distribution deal with CMC Distribution, Canada's largest distributor of Christian Music.
Other big winners of the evening included Toronto Mass Choir member, Aileen Lombardo and the acoustic driven New Brunswick rock band, Three Season Ant, each taking home four awards. The evening featured some of the finest talents in Canadian Christian music in an industry awards showcase that was as diverse as the country's culture. A highlight of the evening was the performance of Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel” by 2003 Canadian Idol first runner up Gary Beals.
Matthews' winning CD, Where You Remain, was recorded and co-produced by Rick Francis at his Stratford studio and was released to a sold out crowd at the elegant Church Restaurant on May 8th, 2004. “I don’t believe that you have to go to Nashville to make a great record. This is a relatively humble CD, recorded in a relatively humble Stratford project studio but Rick is brilliant guy and we worked really hard and set very high standards.” says Matthews. “These awards certainly validate our efforts but I have always felt that being a songwriter is a gift and a privilege. I feel compelled to write and sing songs that offer hope to a broken world and I have been blessed to see my songs touch the lives of so many people. That is more than enough for me. All this recognition is just gravy...really yummy gravy.”
To download a 300 dpi image of Ali's "Where You Remain" CD album cover
CLICK HERETo download the following 300 dpi image of Ali Matthews
CLICK HEREAli can be reached at ali@alimatthews.com or (519) 272-9658
©2004 Copyright Ali Matthews
