Hanover woman contributes to Grammy Award gift bags

This story was published Jan. 29, 2015

A little bit of Hanover will be included in this year's Grammy gift bags.

Grammy Award nominee Peter Kater enlisted the help of Hanover resident Trisha Bowden to make a gift for Grammy presenters and promoters.

"I have been nominated 10 times now," Kater said. "This year I was approached by the Grammys asking me if I would like to provide a small gift for the gift bags. I said yes and contacted Trisha."

Kater, who lives in Hawaii, asked Bowden for help because she has provided vocals and recorded three of his records at her business,Mysterium Music. The two met on a whale watching trip in Hawaii and found similar interest in music.

"We found we both want to do music for hospice and he suggested we start a record company that would focus on relaxing, inspiring and rejuvenating music. So the company was born," Bowden said.

Kater approached Bowden earlier this month about creating gift boxes to help promote the music. Together with other Hanover locals Norma Hildebrand and Michelle Murphy, the group came up with the idea of wrapping three of Kater's CDs together in a silk cloth with a hand-painted design.

"Each on of the fabric squares I painted was unique in the design," Murphy said. "Trisha and I wanted to do something that was fairly easy to do in a week's time."

The two friends got the inspiration for the ribbon design on the fabric from the art being used to promote the newest Kater album.

"We thought it would be a great way to tie the whole package together," Bowden said. "Having the three CDs and then the little card saying to watch for the next album, plus white and red silk fabric, was all just perfect."

To make sure that they cloth would be kept by the recipients, and in Bowden's words "to make it not just all about me," Hildebrand sewed tags with Murphy's name on them to the cloth and attached tags to represent the sewing work she did.

"There is a lot of talent right here in Hanover," Hildebrand said. "Being involved in something like this just goes to show that you don't have to be from a big city to have big dreams."

They shipped 175 of the hand-made gift boxes to California Jan. 23 in preparation for the Feb. 8 Grammy Awards.

While this is the first year that Kater and Mysterium Music are contributing to the gift bags, it is the third year that the record company has been nominated through Kater. Bowden has gone to the event every year her label has been nominated through Kater's music.

The category the company is nominated in is Best New Age Album, but Bowden said the category doesn't do the music justice.

"This is music specifically designed for healing and relaxation," she said. "In my opinion new age could mean almost anything."

Simply being nominated is an accomplishment, Bowden said.

"It is hard to get nominated. It is just a real honor," she said. "I have never won, but just being nominated I feel like I have already won something."

About the nomination

Who: Peter Kater and R. Carlos Kakai

Album: "Ritual"

Label: Mysterium Music

Category: Best New Age Album