Indie Acoustic Project 2010 Winners Announced

The Indie Acoustic Project announced the winners of the IAP’s “Best CDs of 2010” Awards. The winners in each of 12 categories were selected from among the 3 finalists in each category. Egyptian guitarist Ali Khattab won the World Music award with Al Zarqa. Dominican musician Joan Soriano won in the World Beat category with El Duque de la Bachata

“It is the position of the IAP that all of the 36 CDs selected as finalists were in fact the 36 Best CDs of 2010. Accordingly, it was extremely difficult to determine the “winner” for each category, as all of the finalist CDs were outstanding in their own rights. Since our award process is (loosely) modeled on the Oscar and Grammy Awards, a winner is expected to be chosen,” says the press release. “Picking a winner also makes it easier to publicize the musicians: most publications are more likely to make note of 12 CDs winning an award than they are to write an article announcing all 36 finalists.”

The finalists were selected from the ever-growing multitudes of CDs considered for the awards. “As always, the quality of the CDs submitted was terrific, leading to the only major problem we faced: because there were far more than 36 excellent CDs (and only 36 finalist slots), many deserving recordings could not be included.”

Acoustic Ensemble

Chapin Sisters – Two (Lake Bottom)
Americana

Fruition – Fruition (Self-produced)

Celtic

Grada – Natural Angle (Compass)

Instrumental

California Guitar Trio – Andromeda (Inner Knot)

Best Lyrics

Meg Hutchinson – The Living Side (Red House)

Multi-Genre

Michael McGoldrick – Aurora (Compass)

Progressive Edge

Peter Wolf Crier – Inter Be (Jagjaguwar)

Rock

Railroad Earth – Railroad Earth (One Haven)

Roots

Otis Taylor – Clovis People (Telarc)

Singer-Songwriter

Ruth Moody – The Garden (Red House)

Worldbeat

Joan Soriano – El Duque de la Bachata (IASO)

World Music

Ali Khattab – Al Zarqa (Nuevos Medios)