Write your song into national history
Jackie Castillo
Other national events are on the horizon, including the September Celebrations. A premiere event of September is the national song competition. The National Celebrations Commission has announced that submissions are now being accepted for both the carnival and patriotic song categories. All Belizean musicians, performers and songwriters are invited to turn in their songs for a chance to win great prizes and perform their songs live at the finals. Jackie Castillo of the Institute of Creative told News Five what they’re looking for in the entries.
Jackie Castillo, Creative Industry Development Officer, ICA
“We’re looking for songs that will speak about either St. George’s Caye Day or how Belize got its independence. This year, the song will also include patriotic competition, the carnival competition, the junior competition, as well as the carnival road March song of the year. So the call for submissions is going out now and some of the rules remain the same. We’re also asking that people who submit, if they can personally submit their songs to the Institute of Creative Arts here at the Bliss Center and actually drop off the actual CD. What happened last year is we had a lot of people who submitted via email and we weren’t able to get a lot of submissions in. So the call for submissions is open now and the submissions close July twenty-seventh.”
Delahnie Bain
“Is there any particular category that you’d like to see more participation in?”
Jackie Castillo
“This year we would like to see more participation in the junior section. We’ve been seeing a steady increase over the past two years but we would like to see an overwhelming representation from the youths. The youth category goes up until seventeen so if you’re seventeen or younger you can submit in the song competition. And I have good news, this year the prizes are increasing for all the categories in the song competition. As well as we’re going to be including two round trip tickets for the winners to travel out of the country. So we’re asking that all interested persons submit, start submitting early and we will advise that there will be some sort of elimination process—we’re not necessarily sure at this time how we’re going to go about that process but definitely now is the time for everyone to submit.”
For any additional information, you can visit mynationalsong.bz. Submissions are also being accepted for this year’s celebration theme competition. The celebrations will incorporate the Maya Culture and Heritage and since September twenty-first is observed as the International Day of Peace, ideas of peace and aspirations for the nation are also encouraged in the submissions. The deadline for themes is June fifteenth and the winner takes home one thousand dollars in cash.
