Two Christian songwriters have earned this year's Christian Music Songwriter of the Year Award from The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, or ASCAP.
Songwriters David Garcia and Ben Glover have both tied for the award during the 37th Annual ASCAP Christian Music Awards held on March 23.
The awarding was held at the historic Franklin Theatre in Franklin, Tennessee, and was attended by personalities in the Christian music industry, including Francesca Battistelli, Ryan Stevenson and Love & The Outcome, who also presented some of the awards during the event.
Garcia and Glover, together with Christopher Stevens, wrote Mandisa's top selling song "Overcomer," which hit the No.1 spot on Billboard's Hot Christian Songs chart in 2013. The song also achieved the top spots in the National Christian Audience chart for 12 weeks and on SoundScan's Christian/Gospel Core Digital sales chart for 14 weeks.
The award, which was presented to the two songwriters by ASCAP President and Chairman of the Board Paul Williams, is the first for Garcia and the fourth for Glover.
In addition to Garcia and Glover, singer-songwriter Matthew West was also awarded with ASCAP's Christian Music Songwriter-Artist of the Year award. This is West's second award after winning the honour in 2013. In addition to the Christian Music Songwriter-Artist of the Year award, West also won three ASCAP most-performed song awards for his song "Do Something," as well as Josh Wilson's "Pushing Back the Dark" and Casting Crowns "Thrive."
West was 2014's Christian Music Songwriter of the Year awardee for his single "Hello My Name Is."
For the 13th consecutive year, ASCAP honoured Capitol CMG Publishing with the Christian Music Publisher of the Year award in recognition for its publication of 9-award winning songs, namely, "Back to You," "I Am," "Speak Life," "All The People Said Amen," "My Heart Is Yours," "Your Grace Finds Me," "Holding Nothing Back," "Greater," and "Write Your Story."
