Plans are under way for the 2018 staging of the Jamaica Festival Song Competition, which is scheduled to be launched on November 30.
Last week, commissioners and senior officers at the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) met with songwriters and producers to discuss the plans.
The talks focused on the vision for the competition, criteria for the selection of the winning song, incentives for winners, and increasing participation from the local music fraternity.
Interim Executive Director of the JCDC, Orville Hill said that the meeting was important in order to hear the views of the producers.
“The conversation was important so as to get some of the ideas from the producers, who are critical to the Festival Song and as part of the process for it to be more inclusive,” he said.
He noted that the ideas that came out of the talks will be examined “to see to what extent we can incorporate them in the plans for the Festival Song 2018”.
He said the decision to launch the competition in November is to mobilize singers, writers and producers, “to get them to start creating a product that will ultimately be satisfactory to the Jamaican people”.
He said the early launch will also help to generate public interest in the contest before the submission of entries.
Entry forms are available here.
.){kind=link}