A Perfect Pairing: JUNO Award Winner and Celebrity Chef Roger Mooking to Create Menu for the 2016 JUNO Gala Dinner & Awards

- Saturday, April 2 at the Calgary Telus Convention Centre -

TORONTO, March 8, 2016 /CNW/ - The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) is proud to announce that JUNO Award winning artist and celebrity chef Roger Mooking will create the menu for the 2016 JUNO Gala Dinner & Awards presented by SOCAN. Mooking will be the first-ever celebrity chef to curate the food for the event, creating an exclusive three-course meal for Canada's music elite.

An exclusive industry celebration featuring the biggest names in Canadian music, the 2016 JUNO Gala Dinner & Awards will take place on Saturday, April 2 at the Calgary Telus Convention Centre and will recognize 35 JUNO Award winners, the Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award and the Allan Waters Humanitarian Award.

Roger Mooking has an insatiable passion for food, travel and music, and has earned an international reputation as one of North America's premier chefs by developing a culinary philosophy built on the execution of globally inspired culinary dishes. The Trinidadian-born, Canadian-raised chef is no stranger to combining various cultural influences to new and exciting adventures. While Mooking's earliest culinary influences are his family's Chinese and Caribbean specialties, he has also trained under Japanese, French and Swiss German chefs over his 20-year culinary career.

Taking his talents outside of the kitchen, Mooking began his entertainment career in the studio as much as in the kitchen. When he was first starting out as a young chef in Alberta, he would take his pay cheque from working in the kitchen all day and head to the studio to record all night. The hard work paid off when his group Bass Is Base, a Toronto acid jazz and hip hop trio, won a 1994 JUNO Award for Best R&B/Soul Recording and exploded on the music scene with the hit songs "I Cry" and "Funkmobile."

The 2016 JUNO Gala Dinner & Awards will be held at the Calgary Telus Convention Centre on Saturday April 2, the night before the 2016 JUNO Awards Broadcast. Additional event information including live streaming details will be released in the coming weeks.

For the full press release, please visit www.junoawards.ca.

SOURCE JUNO Awards

on CARAS and the 2016 JUNO Awards, contact: Vanessa Andres, 416-628-5612, [email protected]