* Entries are closed. Check back the week of Oct. 18th to vote on your favourite song!
From Ian Tyson’s Four Strong Winds to Cadence Weapon’s Oliver Square, from Corb Lund’s Hurtin’ Albertan to the Rural Alberta Advantage’s acclaimed song cycle about Wild Rose Country, this province has been fertile ground for songwriters working in every genre.
ATB Financial, Alberta Music and CKUA Radio intend to add to that tradition, with a major new Alberta-wide song contest that runs in parallel with the second annual Untapped Alberta concert series.
“We think great art deserves great reward. So we’re not messing around with the prizes,” said ATB spokesperson Shawn Ohler, a lifelong Alberta music lover who helped create the contest.
“We also think it would be dumb to have a bunch of suits at the bank run a music contest, so we invited some great friends to help. CKUA will help judge the entries and engage music fans in every corner of the province. Alberta Music brings expertise, credibility, connections with Alberta songwriters, and a couple of perfect pot sweeteners for the winning song.”
The contest winner will receive $10,000 in cash from ATB Financial, $2,000 from Alberta Music toward a professional, radio-ready recording of the winning song, and inclusion on Alberta Music’s 2012 Sampler.
The second-place winner receives $3,000 in cash. The third-place winner receives $2,000.
Ohler said entrants are free to sing about anything, as long as the theme is Alberta.
“Wikipedia says Alberta has a ‘large tertiary and quartenary economic sector.’ There’s gotta be a hit in there somewhere!” he said.
“Kidding aside, we’re looking for a memorable song that’s artful and resonant about Alberta. It could be about our geography, our climate, a city, a neighbourhood, a church or a mall or a school team, or a single Albertan – famous, infamous, invented or unknown. Surprise us.”
Complete rules and regulations for the contest are available here; consider this the snappy jingle version:
- Entrants must be Albertan.
- Entrants will record and submit an original, new, non-released song about Alberta.
- Lyrics sheets must accompany the recordings.
- Submission deadline is Oct. 8th, 2010.
- Submissions can be e-mailed in a commonly used electronic audio format to nboehk@atb.com or snail-mailed on CD to: Naisa Boehk, ATB Place, 15th Floor -- 9888 Jasper Avenue, Edmonton, T5J 1P1
Judges from Alberta Music, CKUA and ATB will choose a short-list of three to five entrants. Albertans can vote on their favourite song when short-listed entries are posted here on www.wearealberta.ca from mid-October till November 8th.
The winner, chosen from a combination of public voting here on www.wearealberta.ca and a final round of judging, will be revealed, on-stage, at the final Untapped Alberta concert Nov. 13th at the Starlite Room in Edmonton.
