The Quebec group Karkwa won the SOCAN Songwriter(s) of the Year Award as part of the Quebec Indie Music Awards (GAMIQ, or Gala de l'alternative musicale indépendante du Québec), presented Sept. 21, 2008, at Montreal’s Corona Theatre. The award, which comes with a $1,000 cash prize, was presented to Karkwa, also winner of the GAMIQ Artist of the Year Award, by Les Breastfeeders’ Johnny Maldoror.

The GAMIQ award winners were selected between Aug. 6 and Sept. 6 by two juries, each accounting for 50% of the results: the public vote, and a jury of over 200 people including journalists (newspaper, radio, TV and web), concert hall and festival programmers, record store managers and Francophone and Anglophone music industry organization executives from across Quebec.

Many other SOCAN members received awards at the event. For more information and a complete list of winners, please visit the bilingual GAMIQ site.