|
Matson Belle is an award-winning pop/electronic collaboration with world beat, Middle Eastern and classical string influences who have sold CDs in 16 different countries, have a fiction novel named after one of their songs, have won 6 major music awards, have been placed in 3 feature film soundtracks - all through word-of-mouth and a dynamic, international musical palette that doesn't pigeonhole them into one specific genre.
Kate Raidt (aka Matson Belle), the lead singer, songwriter, lyricist and founder of Matson Belle, moved to Los Angeles originally to pursue an acting career. Just months after arriving in LA, Kate appeared on the hit television shows "Beverly Hills 90210", "Wings" and "Seventh Heaven" and eventually won the lead role in the feature film "Hangman" which appeared on Showtime. Through her acting coach, Kate met renowned music producer Pete Snell and her musical interests took off - so Kate went on a game show and won $2500 to finance her first demo CD. Kate performed at the top venues in LA and quickly rose to the top of the LA music scene. Within a year, Kate was nominated for a 2002 American Music Award in the category Best Independent Artist and was selected by the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists as one of the top 6 singer/songwriters in Los Angeles.
Eager to get back to her home state of Texas, Kate moved to Austin in 2002 and began searching for the right people, both musically and professionally, to join forces with. Kate put together a musical collaboration of violins, cello, world beat percussions, electronics and keyboards called Matson Belle and in less than one year in the "Music Capital of the World" they won Best New Band, Best Pop Band and Best Electronic Band at the 2003 Austin Music Awards and Best Pop Song at the 2003 Austin Songwriters Awards. Matson Belle kicked off 2004 by winning another Austin Music Award for Best Electronic Band and Kate received recognition for Album of the Year, Song of the Year and Songwriter of the Year along with a placement of her song "Splendid" on the DVD release of the hit television show "Party of Five". In the fall of 2004 Kate relocated to Prague, The Czech Republic, and upon arrival received the news that her song "The Last Yahoo" recently won Best World Song at the USA Songwriting Competition and a remix of "Goodbye Juggernaut" won Honorable Mentioned at the International Songwriting Awards.
|
