National Country Music Awards Announced

National Country Music Awards Announced

THE OSCARS OF COUNTRY MUSIC

Biggest selling artist of 2011 to perform

Dennis Marsh, Eddie Low,
Jasmine Rae ... and many more

• Founders Theatre, Hamilton, Saturday, August 13.
Tickets on sale NOW from Ticketek

Tickets have gone on sale for the 2011 National Country Music Awards to be held in Hamilton on Saturday, August 13.

The event – the most prestigious on the country music calendar – will be held at Founders Theatre, featuring New Zealand’s biggest selling (of all genres) artist of 2011, DENNIS MARSH. Marsh’s album Maori Songbook has achieved platinum status in New Zealand, selling almost twice as many copies as his nearest Kiwi rival.

Also featuring at the 2011 National Country Music Awards will “the hottest new artist to come out of Australia in a long time”, JASMINE RAE. Rae was nominated for an ARIA for her debut album Look It Up that yielded two #1 singles.

New Zealand’s own country music legends GRAY BARTLETT, JODI VAUGHN, BRENDAN DUGAN and EDDIE LOW will deliver a night to remember, alongside the new brigade of stars KATIE THOMPSON, DAVID SHANHUN, VICKIE EVANS, HARRY HOOKEY, KAYLEE BELL, NZ Idol runner-up NIK CARLSON and TONY WILLIAMS.

Tickets to the National Country Music Awards will be strictly limited. They are on sale now at Ticketek.

The awards, staged annually since 2006 by the Kiwi Pro-Am Country Music Organisation, are a place where promoters, international agents can come to for information on the cream of the crop artists in New Zealand. Country music is the world’s most listened to genre and sells the most live concert tickets of any music in the world today. In New Zealand alone, there are legions of fans, with some 250 club each support between 100 and 200 active members.

Country Music Association international director Rob Potts – whose company has recently toured country mega-stars Keith Urban, Taylor Swift and Brooks & Dunn in Australia – is thrilled with the quality of artists being produced in New Zealand.

“This event is one of the most important events in country music in New Zealand.”

American country music powerhouse, BRYAN WHITE, has confirmed his attendance at the awards. White has charted 17 singles on Billboard's Country Charts, had six number one singles, two platinum records, two gold records, he joined forces with Shania Twain and together they took “From This Moment On” all the way up to number four on Billboard's Hot 100 Chart. He has a Grammy, a CMA Horizon Award, and an ACM Top Male Vocalist award among them. And, with his songwriting, he helped several other artists climb the charts including Wynonna and LeAnn Rimes. The accolades led him to various TV appearances such as "The Tonight Show," "Late Night With David Letterman,” NBC's "The Today Show," and “CBS This Morning.” However, despite all of his music successes, it is an award from outside of the music arena that is probably the best indicator of who White really is; People Magazine named him one of their “fifty most beautiful people” in the world and everyone who knows him
finds it easy to understand why.

The National Country Music Awards have also played a key role in establishing a transtasman artist exchange programme that has seen the winner of the NZ Horizon Award perform at the biggest country music event in the Southern Hemisphere at Tamworth and the Australian equivalent perform at the New Zealand awards.

For the fourth year, the Horizon Award winner will have the added distinction of performing on the Global Artist Showcase as part of the CMA Music Festival in Nashville -- the largest country music festival in the world. This is a major opportunity at instant stardom.

Potts says “It’s very encouraging for country music in this part of the world, to see NZ establishing international pathways for their young artists to gain exposure and experience and Kiwi Pro-Am has been a major force in connecting with the CMA to drive this outcome.”

ends

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