News 2007

Martin Smith and his wife Anna, have founded a new charity called 'Compassionart' dedicated to seeing works of art generate income for the poorest of the poor. They have organised an unprecedented songwriters retreat which will be attended by the biggest names in Christian songwriting. The songwriters' goal is to collectively write 10-12 songs that will be given to the world not just to sing, but to raise money for the relief of suffering around the planet.

Michael W. Smith, Chris Tomlin, Steven Curtis Chapman, Darlene Zschech, Matt and Beth Redman, Tim Hughes, Paul Baloche, Israel Houghton, Graham Kendrick, Andy Park, Martin Smith and Stu Garrard will all attend the retreat in Perthshire, Scotland from 7th to 11th January 2008. Together these songwriters account for at least 42 million albums sold, 82 No. 1 songs, nine GRAMMY Awards, 110 Dove Awards, two Stellar Awards, two American Music Awards, and 98 current CCLI Top 500 songs sung by millions in churches around the world.

100% of the proceeds derived from the songs written at the Compassionart retreat will go directly to charity. The songwriters, publishers, managers, copyright institutes and agents involved have all waived their rights and are donating their efforts on this project to Compassionart over the songs' lifetimes. "Over the last few years I have had the privilege of traveling to some of the poorest parts of the world and seeing first hand the plight of humanity," says Martin Smith, "As a song writer and a person with a microphone I made a promise to try and do something about it. What better than to call on my friends. They have all waived their rights to see something historic happen - the music business coming together for something great, greater than any individual could achieve."