Industry Dinner And Lifetime Achievement Awards
Enjoy the Music.com congratulates all award recipients!
Toronto Audiofest 2024 Show Report By Rick Becker

  Stand-up dinners are a challenge for a photojournalist on assignment. It's hard to hold a dish, operate a fork, and take photos at the same time. I was not only hungry but late to dinner after setting up my computer and falling into the rabbit hole of e-mails.

I arrived in time to grab one of the beef cups everyone raved about, but then I had to fill up on the seafood cups which was a true delight for this seafood lover. Deserts provided a sugar high that enabled me to take photos of the awards ceremony. It also gave me the energy to dash back to my room for another battery when my camera died. Haven't I lived this story once before? I had been carrying spare batteries in my briefcase during the day, but naturally, I did not bring the briefcase to dinner.

Michele Plante was the Master of Ceremonies and he brought up Don Rhule, who was given the Lifetime Achievement Award last year, and his son, Max Rhule who made the presentation to his father. The Rhules were given the honor of presenting the very first "The Next Wave Award" to highlight the new people in our industry.

Jay Iyagi, a YouTuber, was the first recipient. He was pretty speechless at first as the existence of this award was a total surprise to people at the dinner. It was very evident he was deeply moved by the award. Eventually, he was able to express his gratitude in words. Let's hope he keeps up his great work for decades to come.

Sarah Tremblay invited Sheldon and Jeff Ginn of Kevro International to announce the first recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award to their parents, Kathy and Ross Ginn, founders of Kevro International. Kevro has been the distributor of Monitor Audio and Rotel for 40 years now. Coverage of their room in the Holiday Inn will come up later in this report.

The ever-effervescent David Solomon of Qobuz was called upon to introduce the next Lifetime Achievement Award recipients. David is the real-life embodiment of the movie "Everything Everywhere All at Once" at shows. I can't count the number of rooms in which I encountered him over the weekend.

David called Sheldon and Jeff Ginn back to the stage to receive the second Lifetime Achievement Award of the evening, keeping it "All in the Family." Having worked in my family's business for decades, I know how hard these young men have worked.

I couldn't herd the family together in one photo, but here is Sheldon with Ross, Cathy, and David.

Jeff (left) was pretty amazed at receiving the award. The future for Monitor Audio and Rotel in Canada looks pretty solid with these guys at the helm. I caught up with them again on Sunday in their room.

Among many others, I found Michele Plante and cellist Vincent Belanger reveling in the success of the evening.

I must apologize to the readers for being late to dinner and not capturing photos of the food and desserts. Trust me, it was delicious.

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