And what better way to celebrate and bring in September than with a new Belizean song? Vasquez says that this year's National Song Competition has received an outpouring of interest from Belizean artists and musicians. Now with new rules and criteria, the September Celebrations Commission is in search of the next hit Belizean celebration song. Vasquez told us today what they're looking for.
Kim Vasquez, Director of The institute of Creative Arts
"The National Song Competition is back this year it is a relaunch and actually a reformat of the competition This is not the song competition that we were previously having; this is a different format a different criteria of course we are looking for one national song this year the grand prize is twenty thousand dollars, it has a criteria as well and by next week we will putting much more out in the public concerning the national song competition."
Jo
"How many submissions do you have so far and in terms of the criteria what exact;y are you guys looking for?"
Kim Vasquez
"Okay so right now we have, we had a lot of queries. Okay we had the request for the rules and regulations. We have verbally about four or five confirmations where people have told us yes my band we are coming in, I won't reveal their names who all have thrown their hat in the ring and we won't at this point in time be able to say how many finalists we will have as yet as well. What are we looking for? We are not going patriotic and carnival, we are not having those categories, we are just looking for a really good Belizean song. Anything that speaks to our Belizean experience, our heritage, our themes, our stories, history, Belizean."
Those wanting details on the submission guidelines can call 227-2110.The deadline for submission is August 16, 2023.
