12 Finalists for Live@Lunch Simply Jazz Online Competition Finals Streamed Show

14 May, 2020

 Twelve (12) multi-talented Jazz vocalists and instrumentalists have been selected from fifty seven (57) submissions for the finals of the Live@Lunch Simply Jazz Online Competition. The finals of the competition will be streamed on Friday May 15th, 2020 on the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and the Arts’ facebook page @artsandculturett. With $22 000.00 in prize money to be won, viewers will vote for the top three in each category.

The Jazz competition, launched by Dr. the Honourable Nyan Gadsby-Dolly, Minister of Community Development, Culture and Arts on April 30th, invited vocalists and instrumentalists from across Trinidad and Tobago to video record and submit a 2-minute cover performance of one of 10 Jazz songs from the Participant’s Music List by May 11th, 2020. With fifty- seven talented artistes participating in what was a preliminary round of the competition, the panel of judges was blown away by the yet to be tapped wealth of talent.

The vocalists and instrumentalists were adjudicated on melody, rhythm, tonality and presentation; and given the high quality of submissions, the decision was taken to increase the number of finalists from ten (10) to twelve (12).

According to Dr. Nyan Gadsby-Dolly, Minister of Community Development, Culture and the Arts, “we need to find more ways to bring this kind of talent to the stage; the challenges of the day are forcing us to dig deep and devise new avenues to support the critical role our artistes play in the healing process. They represent the resilience of our nation and the fighting spirit that resides in all of us.”  The Minister of Culture thanked the judges for their time and expertise, and challenged her team and partners MusicTT and Wack 90.1FM to create another opportunity to engage and profile those artistes who demonstrated great potential, despite not making it to the finals.

Viewers at home can tune in to the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and the Arts’ facebook page @artsandculturett from 12 noon on Friday May 15th to vote for the winners of the competition.  The winners of the Vocalist and Instrumentalist categories will take home $ 5,000 each, the second place winners $3,500 each, and  third place $2,500 each. There is also the Best New Act Award of $2,000 courtesy MusicTT.

 Finalists in the Vocalist Category: 

Ju-ne’ Thomas; Genisa St Hillaire; Aaron Ifill; Filicia Roberts; Reisha St Hilaire and Kay Alleyne-Meloney

 Finalists in the Instrumentalist Category:

Matthew Newallo (Saxophone); Kyle Peters (Guitar); Dean Williams (Guitar); Arthur Peters (Steelpan); Shaquille Noel (Drum set solo) and Hanif Goodridge (Steel pan)

This competition is brought to you by the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and Arts in partnership with MusicTT and Wack 90.1FM Radio.