EMBARGO: UNTIL 5:00 P.M. ON NOVEMBER 26, 2013

Montreal – SOCAN – the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada – proudly saluted its Francophone members’ outstanding achievements at its 24^th annual SOCAN Awards on Nov. 26, 2013, at a gala event at the Hyatt Regency Montreal Hotel.

“The Montreal SOCAN Awards gala is an opportunity to set aside the music industry’s current challenges and the constant need to fight for the rights of music creators and to take the time to applaud their achievements. So, let us follow the lead of our host, the popular SOCAN member Vincent Vallières, and celebrate the vitality of our music,” SOCAN CEO Eric Baptiste urged the audience as the show opened.

As part of the 24^th edition, SOCAN awards were presented to authors, composers and music publishers for their 2012 accomplishments in the pop, concert, instrumental, and film and television music genres. Louise Forestier, a Francophone music pioneer with a career spanning four decades, was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award, while André Perry, the founder of the sound recording institution of Le Studio and an active industry force to this day, received the Special Achievement Award.

A number of Quebec songs having achieved more than 25,000 radio plays received SOCAN Classics awards, and their creators – Yves Décary and Germain Gauthier; Roch Voisine and his co-writers Rosanna Ciciola, Yves Décary and Tino Izzo; Marcel Lefebvre and Carl Katz; Pierre Flynn; Pierre Bertrand; Pierre Huet and Robert Léger; Rudy Caya and his co-writers Nicole Beausoleil, Frédéric Bonicard, Rodolphe Fortier, Claude Samson and Michel Vaillancourt – were warmly applauded by their peers.

Songwriters honoured also included the creators of the 10 most-performed Francophone rock and pop songs of 2012, including Ariane Brunet; Sophie Nault and Sylvain Michel;  Amylie, Sophie Beaudet and Daniel Beaumont; François Lachance; Daniel Bélanger; Marc Dupré and Nelson Minville; Steve Veilleux; and Jérôme Dupras, Marie-Annick Lépine and Jean-François Pauzé.

In the instrumental music categories, Misteur Valaire’s DRouin, France, Jules, Luis and To collected the Hagood Hardy Award, while the internationally successful composer Ana Sokolovic was presented with the New Classical Music Award. Louis Côté and K-Maro shared the Chanson Internationale prize for the most-performed Canadian Francophone song abroad.

Film and television music awards were presented to screen composers Sari Dajani; Iohann Martin and Rudy Toussaint; Paul-Étienne Côté; Serge Essiambre; Raymond Fabi; Anthony Rozankovic; and James Gelfand.

Ricky J, Show Stephens and Karl Wolf received the Chanson Anglophone award for the English-language song written by resident of Quebec that has received the most airplay across the country in the past year.

Finally, Alain Simard received SOCAN’s Patron of Music Award for the cooperative approach and copyright awareness of L’Équipe Spectra, a group whose major productions and events include Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, MONTRÉAL EN LUMIÈRE and FrancoFolies de Montréal.

About SOCAN
SOCAN represents the Canadian performing rights of millions of Canadian and international music creators and publishers. SOCAN is proud to play a leading role in supporting the long-term success of its more than 120,000 Canadian members, as well as the Canadian music industry. SOCAN collects license fees from over 125,000 businesses coast to coast and distributes royalties to its members and peer organizations around the world. SOCAN also distributes royalties to its members for the use of Canadian music around the world in collaboration with its peer societies.

View the Winners List

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Media Contacts:

Anne Richard, SOCAN
Communications & Marketing
514-844-8377, ext. 4943,
richarda@socan.ca

Lise Raymond
Communications Lise Raymond (for SOCAN)
(450) 640-0500
lise@clraymond.com