André “Vander” Vanderbiest received the SOCAN Best Song Award from SOCAN member Andrea Lindsay as part of the 2011 Festival en chanson de Petite-Vallée in Quebec’s Gaspé region. ( Photo: Alain Lauzier)

SOCAN member Andrea Lindsay presented the SOCAN Best Song Award to songwriter André “Vander” Vanderbiest for “Y’a pas que…” (“It’s Not Only…”) on July 1, 2011, as part of the 29th annual Festival en chanson de Petite-Vallée. The event ran from June 24 to July 3, and SOCAN Relationship Specialist Stéphanie Falco hosted a “SOCAN 101” training workshop for all the contestants on June 29.

Well-known SOCAN members Marie-Claire Séguin, Edgar Bori, Pierre Flynn and Michel Faubert all participated in songwriting and performance training sessions designed to provide festival contestants with an opportunity to perform in a real-life, professional environment. The festival’s 2011 spokesperson, singer-songwriter Luc De Larochellière, was joined onstage by the Quebec electro-jazz band Misteur Valaire for the closing concert of the event, which attracted about 100 artists from Belgium, the U.S., Guadelupe, Atlantic Canada and throughout Quebec.

The top winner of this year’s festival was the young and talented Quebec actor Émile Proulx-Cloutier, whose decision to branch out into pop music paid off handsomely as he collected no less than seven of the eight songwriting awards presented as part of the festival.