Columbia Records announces the release of A Cherry Cherry Christmas, the new Neil Diamond holiday collection, available in stores and online Tuesday, October 13.

The title song, “Cherry Cherry Christmas,” is filled with references to many of Diamond’s greatest hits. Newly written and recorded by Neil Diamond for Christmas 2009, it is destined to become a new Christmas standard.

Newly included with the re-mastered classics are a transcendent “Amazing Grace”; another new Neil Diamond original, “Christmas Dream”; and a party-time version of Adam Sandler’s comedic “The Chanukah Song,” produced by DJ Ashba (Guns N’ Roses).

Neil Diamond – A Cherry Cherry Christmas

Tracklisting:

• Cherry Cherry Christmas
• Sleigh Ride
• Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas
• White Christmas
• Christmas Dream
• The Christmas Song
• Deck The Halls / We Wish You A Merry Christmas
• Jingle Bell Rock
• You Make It Feel Like Christmas
• Winter Wonderland
• Joy To The World
• Amazing Grace
• Meditations On A Winter Night (Instrumental)
• The Chanukah Song

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Budding stars that would leap at the opportunity to make it in the “American Idol” world now have their chance. Beginning Friday, October 23rd The Church at Rancho Bernardo will host wMw Academy of Vocal Flight’s first program for professional and amateur singers.

Professional singers hailing from Los Angeles to South Africa will offer instruction to hundreds of singing hopefuls at an intensive “For Singers Only” workshop. Aspiring vocalists interested in enrolling in the three-day course should register now because the highly coveted spaces are limited.

Classes will focus on strengthening vocal technique, improving live performance, navigating through the music industry, and will conclude with a concert featuring some of the students and well-known professionals.

Enrollment is already underway for “FOR SINGERS ONLY, Finding Your Voice, The Path to Enjoyment and Success in Music. wMw Academy of Vocal Flight is accepting registration online at www.wmwacademy.com for the $149.00, three-day course up until day one of the program. Attendees may also register by calling (858) 592-2434, or emailing info(at)wmwacademy.com. The workshop runs from Friday, October 23rd, 5:30 p.m. to Sunday, October 25th, 11:00 p.m. Tickets for the final Sunday evening concert, which is open to the public, are on sale now for $15.00, at www.wmwacademy.com.

Unsigned and independent musicians now have a new way to get their music heard by the masses. The World’s Stage is a new website where artists can upload videos of themselves performing. Users of the site can rate and comment on videos. Artists with the most votes can rise to the top of the ranks and be featured prominently on the home page.

If you’re an artist, musician, band, or just have talent and your looking to get some exposure, just create an account and submit a video. The World’s Stage will broadcast your music for free. The best videos make it to the “Video of the Day” section and get front page exposure.

The World’s Stage has a wide variety of music genres. Everything from punk to pop is included. User submissions range from a young girl on her bed with an acoustic guitar, to video of a band playing a live show. The World’s Stage accepts any video as long as it is an “original” or a “cover” by an unsigned artist.

The World’s Stage is committed to helping unsigned and independent musicians get heard on the internet. Users of the website have positively praised The World’s Stage. Many of the artists featured would not otherwise have this type of exposure.

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Snowsports and Music festival, London FREEZE has launched an innovative online communications hub at www.londonfreeze.com/lg/. FREEZE Connect, the brainchild of official event sponsor LG Electronics, is the place for all the latest official and backstage news, coupled with an array of interactive and exclusive ‘Life’s Good’ competitions for followers of this iconic event.

Live today, FREEZE Connect links directly to the event’s popular Facebook and Twitter pages where exclusive messages will be created by the FREEZE Connect team consisting of UK Olympic snowboard hopeful Ben Kilner and the widely downloaded Snowfix Podcast presenters Tim & Jools via their LG social networking handsets (GW520).

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ROCKPIT.COM, the new music website dedicated to all things rock, will celebrate its official launch LIVE with CREED from the Cynthia Wood Mitchell Pavilion in Houston to kick off the High Definition Live Webcast Concert Series along the multi-platinum, Grammy-winning rockers’ Full Circle tour. Be a part of the action as it happens for FREE at Rockpit.com starting Sept. 25 at 8 p.m. CST.

The highly anticipated Rockpit.com website and High Definition Live Webcast Concert Series will be a music industry first. Rockpit.com features an exclusive, comprehensive rock band database of over 500 rock bands and artists, editorial blogs, fan-driven content and community, and the largest full-length rock concert catalog available online. The catalog will feature A-list artists in heritage, alternative and top 40 rock.

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According to Billboard Magazine, Grammy Award winning duo Mary Mary, now holds the record for the longest climb to the top 10 in the chart’s 67-year history as their #1 single, “God In Me” jumped from 11-10 in it’s 42nd week on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs. Mary Mary are now the only gospel act to have at least two top 10s this decade, “Shackles (Praise You)” peaked at No.9 in 2000.

“God In Me” is currently celebrating its 7th consecutive week at the #1 spot on Billboard’s Hot Gospel Songs chart.

The Sound occupied the #1 slot on the Billboard Gospel Album chart for more than six months since its release in October 2008 and was #1 for 15 consecutive weeks beginning April 19. The Sound has also spent four weeks at #1 on the Billboard Top Christian Albums chart.

Featuring Kierra “Kiki” Sheard, “God In Me,” perhaps the first gospel record to deploy an auto-tune, continues Mary Mary’s visionary blending of urban, hip-hop, soul, funk and pop elements with the power and conviction of their Christian message.

Mary Mary performed “God In Me,” with guest artist Queen Latifah, at the 2009 BET Awards, where the pair was named this year’s Best Gospel Artist.

2009 has been a banner year for Mary Mary. “Get Up,” the lead single from The Sound, earned the duo 2009’s Best Gospel Performance Grammy (their second overall) and a 2009 Dove Award (the pair’s seventh to-date) for Urban Recorded Song of the Year. Mary Mary also took this year’s NAACP Image Award for Best Gospel Artist (Traditional or Contemporary).

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For the last five years, San Francisco jazz and blues vocalist Pamela Rose has been investigating the music of women songwriters–particularly those of the Tin Pan Alley and classic blues eras–in her dynamic live shows. Both she and her audiences responded strongly to the repertoire, but Rose was surprised to realize that “even though we love and revere these songs, we don’t know the writers’ names.”

Determined to bring these women and their contributions into the limelight, Pamela Rose has recorded a revelatory new CD that will not only spread the word about these writers, but should prove to be a breakthrough work for Rose herself.

Songwriting was the primary occupation of seven of the CD’s “gal composers”: Bernice Petkere (represented here by “Close Your Eyes”), Doris Fisher (”That Ole Devil Called Love,” recorded in 1946 by Billie Holiday), Dana Suesse (”My Silent Love”), lyricist Dorothy Fields (”A Fine Romance,” “I’m in the Mood for Love”), Kay Swift (”Can’t We Be Friends”), Vee Lawnhurst/Tot Seymour (”And Then Some,” a 1935 hit for Ozzie Nelson), and Maria Grever (”What a Diff’rence a Day Made”).

Three of the writers were full-time singers who penned some of their own material–Peggy Lee (”I Don’t Know Enough About You”), Alberta Hunter (”Down Hearted Blues”), and Ida Cox (”Wild Women [Don’t Have the Blues”). And Pamela Rose herself carries the tradition into the present century with three original compositions (”I’m Not Missing You,” “Bruised Around the Heart,” “If You’re So Special”). “The writing process has always fascinated and engaged me,” says Rose.

Pamela Rose grew up a block from the Troubadour, the West Hollywood nightclub that was the incubator for L.A.’s early-1970s emerging singer-songwriter scene. “I just about lived there,” she recalls, “and witnessed this wonderful explosion when all the singer-songwriters were blooming.” She performed her “very emo songs” on amateur nights at the club.

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Tim Janis, best-selling new age composer and singer, has partnered with Odyssey Networks new multi-media campaign, “A Million Minutes for Peace.”

“A Million Minutes for Peace” features an invitation to pledge to pray for peace for one minute at noon on September 21, the United Nations International Day of Peace. Several of Janis’s performances, such as “Children of the World” and “Come Home to Me”, will be featured in the Odyssey Networks Peace Video Festival at www.odysseynetworks.org. He will also lead an online discussion about the power of music and how it can create peace and harmony among people. Web visitors can receive a free download of a Tim Janis CD if they register to become members of Odyssey Networks.

Janis is known by fans throughout the world as a music healer and inspirational leader. His compositions and his performance style has been dubbed “music with a mission.”

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