GET YOURSELF NOTICED AS YAMAHA AND LIVERPOOL INSTITUTE FOR PERFORMING ARTS LAUNCH UNIQUE SONGWRITING AND ENTERPRISE AWARDS

Yamaha – Kemble (Music) UK and the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) announce the launch of a major new annual songwriting and enterprise awards scheme aimed at encouraging and uncovering fresh creative talent from young artists and entrepreneurs. With backing and funding from artists, the BPI, and Future Publishing ‘ Make it Break it looks set to become THE scheme to enter if you want to get your music and media ideas in front of the people that matter and make decisions in the music business.

A judging panel has been put together to reflect all the key areas of the music business including COLDPLAYS CHRIS MARTIN, RADIO ONES MARK AND LARD, PRODUCER STEVE LEVINE AND PROMOTER HARVEY GOLDSMITH together with representatives from the record and publishing business.

If youve got real talent you cant afford to miss the chance to get serious with make it break it –

The awards are a unique opportunity for individuals, teams and schools to get noticed, receive invaluable feedback from and network with top industry people and its hoped that they will provide a great platform for material and ideas to develop to serious level.

The awards look set to pick up where the hugely successful and critically acclaimed Yamaha National Youth Rock and Pop Awards left off. The NYRPA helped launch the careers of Coldplays Chris Martin and F!VES Sean Conlon and enabled hundreds of young aspiring artists to connect with industry professionals.

Entries are now being sought from individuals or teams from two age categories, 14-16 and 16-19 and entry forms outlining the rules and regulations together with posters and letters to teachers encouraging entrants are currently being sent to all schools and colleges throughout the UK.

Prospective entrants and teachers can also find out more and download all relevant information via the Internet by visiting http://www.makeitbreakit.org and entries must be received at LIPA by 22 August 2003

Entries must comprise an original song, lyric sheet and a marketing plan, (hence the make it break it title) detailing how the song will be marketed and PRd to bring it to the attention of the buying public. By widening the entry rules to include the marketing and commercial aspects of breaking a song as well as the purely musical, the organisers hope that more schools and teams will participate.

The aim of the marketing plan is to develop demand for the song and each participating team is allocated a virtual budget of 500 to devise and execute the plan, the aim of the plan is to outline realisable activities to get the song in front of the public

The scheme is a great opportunity for young people with varied skills to collaborate on the whole process from composition through to breaking the song in the marketplace.

All entries will be judged initially by a preliminary judging panel comprising teachers and postgraduate music students in the key areas who will identify 20 entries to go through to a second round where they will be adjudicated on by the final judging panel.

Songs will be judged on originality, lyrics and melody. The quality of the recording will also be a factor as will the creativeness and realism of the marketing plan. It will not be sufficient to provide a brilliant song, all elements are equally important and are the focus of the scheme.

The final judging panel will nominate 6 overall winners from the 20 finalist entries and all finalists will be invited to participate in the awards ceremony where they will meet the judging panel and have an opportunity to network with key industry personnel.

The 6 overall winning entries (3 from each age group) will be invited to perform the selected song with a band of high profile session musicians and deliver the marketing plan at what is promised to be a star studded awards ceremony to be held at LIPA on November 1 2003.

The organisers state that this experience will be one of the key motivating factors in attracting high quality material from the UKs finest musical talent.

Thanks to the unique nature of the scheme and massive industry support the main benefit to entrants is the recognition, networking possibilities an encouragement to go further. All winning teams and their nominated schools will receive Yamaha ‘s award winning AW16G digital audio workstation, a state of the art complete production environment and the perfect technological accompaniment to a great idea!

AND THERES MORE………………

In addition to the awards ceremony and Yamaha products, successful entrants and teams will be treated to an entire weekend of masterclasss and marketing seminars designed to help them further develop their composition and marketing skills hosted by top industry people and some members of the final judging panel.

For more information and entry forms please phone 01908 369253

The main point of contact for all enquiries is Karen Watts - @ Yamaha
ENDS

Pictures of judges are available. Please contact DJPR