Summerland music producer Paul Biro has been nominated for the Canadian Country Music Association’s Ron Sakamoto Talent Buyer Or Promoter Of The Year.
Biro, who works with the Sakamoto Agency and has been a music promoter for more than 25 years.
“We’re here to encourage the creative spirit,” Biro said. “We try to treat the artists like they are our friends.”
Over the years, Biro has worked with a long list of country music artists.
Some of the artists he promotes today include The Washboard Union, Aaron Goodvin, the Chris Buck Band and Nice Horse.
The Chris Buck Band and Nice Horse have both performed at the Summerland Festival of Lights in past years.
The nomination is not the first for Biro.
He was first nominated for a CCMA award in 2000, and has received the nomination many times since then.
“I’ve been doing this for a very, very long time,” he said. “We go out of our way to do a really good job.”
He also has words of praise for his partner, Ron Sakamoto, who has been in the business for more than 50 years and has won the CCMA’s promoter of the year award numerous times. The award is now named after Sakamoto.
Biro grew up in a musical family and has had a lifelong love of music. “I felt called at a young age to encourage the creative spirit,” he said.
He is happy to be able to promote music from Summerland. “It’s really great to do something you love from a place you like living in,” he said.
His sons attend school in the community and the family attends Summerland Baptist Church, where his wife Sonia is on the church’s music team.
The 2018 CCMA Awards Show will be broadcast from Hamilton, Ont. on Sunday, Sept. 9 on CBC.