Last Month's CASH Golden Sail Music Awards

Eason Chan and Kay Tse - two of this year's Golden Sail winners

CASH is the Composers and Authors Society of Hong Kong, the association for writers in the Hong Kong music industry. Since 2001 they have been handing out the Golden Sail Awards to recognise the best music works and vocal performances over a 12 month period, usually from August to the following August. The 2008-09 Awards were announced at the end of last month, and - no surprises here - Eason Chan (陈奕迅, pinyin: Chén Yìxùn) was one of the biggest winners. In fact by my calculation Eason Chan has picked up at least one award at eight of the nine Golden Sail ceremonies held, which officially makes him a pop phenomenon.

Chan took home two Golden Sail Music Awards: Best Male Vocal Performance for 700 Years Later (年度之歌), and Best Song Award, again for 700 Years Later. That song also won an award for its lyricist Lin Ruoning. It missed out however on the award for Best Melody, which instead went to singer-songwriter Ivana Wong for The Moon Says (月亮说).

Best Female Vocal Performance - for the second year in a row - was awarded to Kay Tse (谢安琪, pinyin: Xiè Anqí). This year she won it with the aptly titled Song of the Year (年度之歌). Another regular winner, Hong Kong duo Swing, won Best Group Performance for (我有貨, a title that's a little difficult to translate). Best Performance by a Band was awarded to Mr., the emerging Hong Kong rock band (yes, there are Hong Kong rock bands) for their song If I Was Eason Chan (如果我是陳奕迅).

The CASH website has the full list of winners.