EMI Christian Music Label Group and its owned and distributed labels received multiple awards including the top award of the evening at the 2009 GMA Dove Awards held last night at the Grand Old Opry House in Nashville, Tenn. and also broadcasted live on Gospel Music Channel.

"It is always a great feeling to know that your peers, co-workers, industry & music community appreciate and respect the work you do with your artists, and that is what the Dove Award represents," says EMI CMG CEO Bill Hearn. "In the bigger picture, it means that our music is touching lives and impacting people around the world."

Steven Curtis Chapman took top honors at this year's ceremony receiving emotional wins for " Artist of the Year" and "Songwriter of the Year" less than a year after the tragic loss of his daughter Maria Sue Chapman. The multi-platinum-selling, five-time GRAMMY ® winning Sparrow artist maintains his status as the most-awarded artist in the history of the Dove Awards now with a total of 56 trophies. This was his seventh "Artist of the Year" win.

sixsteps' recording artist Chris Tomlin and EMI Gospel received the "Contemporary Gospel Recorded Song" title for "How Great Is Our God." sixstepsrecords' Passion also received a win for "Special Event Album of the Year" for their compilation disc Passion: God Of This City, in the category of "Special Event Album." The CD features sixstepsrecords' artists Chris Tomlin, David Crowder* Band, Charlie Hall, Matt Redman, Christy Nockels and Kristian Stanfill.

Gaither Music Group won in the "Southern Gospel Album" category for Lovin' Life featuring Ernie Gaither Vocal Band, Bill Gaither, Guy Penrod, Marshall Hall and Wes Hampton. The music group also received a Dove award in the "Southern Gospel Record Song" category for "Reason Enough" off of Ernie Haase & Signature Sound's Dream On album.

BEC picked up two awards for "Rap/Hip Hop Recorded Song" for "Do Yo Thang" from KJ-52's album The Yearbook and Rescatame from Seventh Day Slumber, Alejandro Allen and Susana Allen earned them their second win of the night for "Spanish Language Album."

Forefront Records' TobyMac's Alive & Transported garnered a win in the "Long Form Music Video of the Year" category. TobyMac also received his firs solo GRAMMY ® win earlier this year for the CD component of Alive & Transported.