A music competition is a public event designed to identify and award outstanding musical ensembles, soloists, composers, conductors, musicologists [1] or compositions. Pop music competitions are music competitions which are held to find pop starlets.
Examples of music competitions in popular music include Open Mic UK, SoundWave Music Competition, All-Japan Band Association annual contest, the World Music Contest, Live and Unsigned, the Eurovision Song Contest, and American Idol .
European classical art music uses competitions to provide a public forum that identifies the strongest young players and helps them start their professional careers (see List of classical music competitions). Popular instrumental ensembles such as brass bands and school bands have also long relied on competitions and festivals to promote their musical genres and recognize high levels of achievement. In the recent decades, large competitions have also developed in the field of popular music to showcase performances by pop vocalists and rock bands (e.g. "Idol series" and "Battle of the Bands" events).
One of the first and oldest large-scale musical contests is the Sanremo Music Festival which started in 1951 and was also the inspiration for the Eurovision Song Contest.
The music competitions with the largest audiences are widely televised events in the genre of popular music, such as the Eurovision Song Contest and American Idol . The Open Mic UK and Live and Unsigned contests in the United Kingdom each garner approximately 10,000 contestants annually, making them the largest contests in the region. [2] [3] [4]
According to 2005 statistics, more than 650,000 visitors attend the World Music Contest (Kerkrade, the Netherlands), which has 19,000 contestants from over 30 countries, making it one of the largest competitions in Europe. [5] The All-Japan Band Association annual contest appears to be the world's largest music competition in terms of the number of active contestants, [6] with approximately 800,000 competing musicians in more than 14,000 bands. [7] A competition which has recently hit the United Kingdom music scene is called SoundWave Music Competition. This competition allows for singers, bands and all acts of all genres a chance to play at the O2 Academy Leeds, Newcastle and Glasgow. SoundWave Music Competition is a high profile competition and the biggest music competition in Northern England and Scotland where entrants can win radio slots and recording within the best recording studios in the United Kingdom and Scotland. One of the oldest music competitions in the world is the International Naumburg Competition, in New York, which had its first competition in 1926. [8] In recent years, the largest music competition in terms of number of global genres represented appears to be Sharq Taronalari, an enormous festival sponsored by UNESCO and the government of Uzbekistan. [9] Various online music competitions for young musicians are now gaining popularity, including Unsigned Only, which is a global music contest based in United States, and Machan Music, an open and ongoing music contest based in India. The Songwriters Resource Network [10] organizes the annual Great American Song Contest which is open to songwriters and lyric writers internationally.
The music of Finland can be roughly divided into folk music, classical and contemporary art music, and contemporary popular music.
Pop Idol is a British music competition television series created by Simon Fuller which ran on ITV from 2001 to 2003. The aim of the show was to decide the best new young pop singer in the UK based on viewer voting and participation. Two series were broadcast, one in 2001–2002 and a second in 2003. An immense success when it launched in 2001, Maggie Brown in The Guardian wrote, "the show became a seminal reality/entertainment format once on air that autumn". Series judge Simon Cowell became a major public figure in entertainment, and the show produced instant No. 1 chart hits, including for the first series winner Will Young, whose single "Evergreen" was the fastest-selling debut in UK chart history and the best-selling song of 2002. Pop Idol was subsequently put on an indefinite hiatus after Simon Cowell announced the launch of The X Factor in the UK in April 2004.
The music of South Korea has evolved over the course of the decades since the end of the Korean War, and has its roots in the music of the Korean people, who have inhabited the Korean peninsula for over a millennium. Contemporary South Korean music can be divided into three different main categories: Traditional Korean folk music, popular music, or K-pop, and Western-influenced non-popular music.
Rosa María López Cortés is a Spanish singer of various musical genres.
A Battle of the Bands is a music contest or competition in which a number of bands compete for the title of "best band". The winner is determined by a voice vote of the audience or the band who brings the most people to support them. Traditionally, battles of bands are held at live music events and forums. Popular examples include the yearly Live and Unsigned contest in the United Kingdom and the annual SoundWave Music Competition.
Hanna Helena Pakarinen is a Finnish pop and pop-rock singer who rose to fame as the winner of the first series of the Finnish singing competition Idols in 2004. Since then she has represented Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest in 2007 on homeland, and has sold over 91,000 certified records in Finland, which places her among the top 50 best-selling female soloists in her home country.
Music of Kosovo is music that originates from Kosovo, a country in the Balkans. Kosovo's population is mainly Kosovo Albanians, also known as Kosovars, and there are various minority ethnic groups as well. Kosovan music is closely related to that of neighbouring Albania, as well as to that of countries in the former Yugoslavia.
The All Japan Band Association (AJBA) is an organization that exists solely for the purpose of facilitating annual music competition among Japanese wind bands. This competition has largely promoted the concert band idiom, but in recent years AJBA has also included separate entries for marching band and smaller chamber music ensembles within its national competition.
Margaret Berger is a Norwegian singer, songwriter, music director, and DJ. She made her debut on Sony BMG after she placed second on the second season of Norwegian Idol in 2004.
The music of Yugoslavia refers to music created during the existence of Yugoslavia, spanning the period between 1918 and 1992. The most significant music scene developed in the later period of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and includes internationally acclaimed artists such as: the alternative music acts Laibach and Disciplina Kičme which appeared on MTV; classical music artists such as Ivo Pogorelić and Stefan Milenković; folk artists such as the Roma music performer Esma Redžepova; the musicians of the YU Rock Misija contribution to Bob Geldof's Band Aid; the Eurovision Song Contest performers such as the 1989 winners Riva and Tereza Kesovija, who represented Monaco at the Eurovision Song Contest 1966 and her own country in 1972, and plenty of others.
Pop music in Ukraine is Western influenced pop music in its various forms that has been growing in popularity in Ukraine since the 1960s.
Pop Idol was a British television talent show that ran for two series, in 2001 and 2003. The show was produced for ITV in a reality television format and aimed to unearth a previously undiscovered singer who could become an international success. Will Young was the winner of the first series and was awarded with a £1 million music recording contract. Young became the most successful contestant with a series of top-five hits, including his debut single "Anything Is Possible" / "Evergreen", which peaked at number one on the UK Singles Chart in 2002 and broke chart sales figure records. During the next seven years he recorded two further number-one singles, while two of his four albums were number-one in the UK Albums Chart. In the second series, Michelle McManus emerged victorious. Her debut single "All This Time" charted at number one in January 2003. Her second single, "The Meaning of Love", charted at a peak of number 16 and an album of the same name reached number three in the UK Albums Chart.
Idol: Jakten på en superstjerne 2004 was the second season of Idol Norway based on the British singing competition Pop Idol. It premiered one year after the first season and was aired in the first half of 2004.
Jamie Tinkler is an English singer and songwriter born in Linthorpe, Middlesbrough, England. He has had record deals with Jive, Sony/BMG along with Universal Records. Jamie has been a contestant on the Eurovision song for Europe performing live on BBC, made it to the final 50 of Pop Idol 2003, He had three top 20 UK Chart hit's with Girl/Boy band Pop! and has been a finalist contestant on X Factor with Boyband Avenue in 2006.
Chris Grayston is an English music promoter, event organizer, record producer, musician, label owner and talent scout. He is currently employed as a music consultant including working for acts and record labels.
Live Fest is a bi-annual music festival held at The O2 in London. According to its organizers, it is the largest indoor music festival in the United Kingdom. In the first festival on 23 July 2011, some of the headlining acts included Zane Lowe, Tinchy Stryder, Roll Deep, The Hoosiers, and Funeral for a Friend. Prominent genres of music at the festival include urban, pop, rock, and indie.
Roman Lob is a German singer-songwriter. In January and February 2012, Lob was a contestant in the German TV show Unser Star für Baku, produced by the German broadcasting stations Pro7 and Das Erste. He is also the lead singer of the band Rooftop Kingdom, an alternative rock band with origins in Neustadt (Wied). He was also a founding member of German Metalcore band, Days of Despite.
Uku Suviste is an Estonian singer-songwriter, pianist and music producer. He was scheduled to represent Estonia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 in Rotterdam, Netherlands, before cancellation of the competition that year. However, he finally had the chance to represent Estonia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2021.
Georgia participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 with the song "Keep On Going" written by Roman Giorgadze and Diana Giorgadze. The song was performed by Oto Nemsadze. The Georgian broadcaster Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB) held the reality television show Georgian Idol in order to select the Georgian entry for the 2019 contest in Tel Aviv, Israel. The competition resulted in the selection of four finalists that performed potential Eurovision songs during the final on 3 March 2019. The results of a public vote exclusively resulted in the selection of "Sul tsin iare" performed by Oto Nemsadze as the Georgian entry, having received 44.13% of the votes. The song was later retitled for the Eurovision Song Contest and was titled "Keep On Going".
Georgia originally planned to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 with the song "Take Me as I Am" written and performed by Tornike Kipiani, who was selected through the reality television show Georgian Idol, held by the Georgian broadcaster Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB). The competition resulted in the selection of four finalists for the final on 31 December 2019. The results of a public vote exclusively resulted in the selection of Tornike Kipiani as the winner. The song that Tornike Kipiani would perform, "Take Me as I Am", was presented to the public on 3 March 2020.
