CBC's annual music competition, Searchlight, is open for voting.
The competition's website lists all the competitors across the nation (more than 1,200 entries overall), and you can also group them by genre or by region. Prince George artists are found under the Interior and Northern B.C. heading.
Each performer has their own feature square where one click gives you a music video to sample their entry song, and a small bio about the act. If you like it, you can click on the Vote button. You can vote for as many acts as you like, as long as you watch at least part of their video.
The Interior and Northern B.C. category has 60 competitors, collecting all the province's entries including from Chilliwack to the Kootenays, from the north coast to the Yukon and Peace region.
Some of the competitors from the immediate area are well known to local audiences. Chief among those are Roman Kozlowski, the Jack Van Somer Band, Steve Regnier and William Kuklis.
Also in the running is local singer-songwriter Derrick McCandless who entered in the Manitoba category, where he recently lived until moving back to Prince George.
There are also some entries from the neighbouring regions around Prince George, such as JAFO from Quesnel, Parker Threlkeld from Vanderhoof, Katy Nicol from Beaver Valley near Williams Lake, Timothy Shawn Sound from Fort St. John, Gail Chapman from Burns Lake and Violet Night from Chetwynd.
Also on the national list are acts that have toured to Prince George in the recent past and have local fans here like The Whiskey Jerks, Tamar Ilana & Ventanas and Hewson Grey.
The Searchlight competition is an all-in kind of contest. All genres are welcome and they all blend into the voting tournament, from bluegrass to hiphop, rock to world-beat, in every possible band configuration. The contest is also demonstrative of the human resources the Canadian music industry has.
All ages, experience levels, ethnicities and social backgrounds are represented in the mix. Some have professionally produced music videos representing their entry song, some were lo-fidelity live concert video clips, and some simply shot themselves on a home computer camera. The voter is asked to look past the production values and make a choice based on the quality of the song and the musical skills.
One thing they all have in common is, regardless of their talent level, these acts do not have a presence on a national level. The CBC Searchlight is looking for them. The voting period goes on until Feb. 27 at the CBC Searchlight web page. It is a four-round competition with the final winner being announced on April 9.
The grand prize and the subsidiary prizes all involve cash, performance opportunities, national publicity, and high-value career development elements.
