Ourvision 2008: From Ghana to Canada

The Ourvision singing contest, a far cry from ever dreamed Worldvision Song Contest will have its second edition tomorrow night in prestigious Finlandia Hall in Helsinki (where the Welcoming Party was held last year!). Ten acts made it to the final in the continental semifinals over the winter and this time around it's bigger and better: the winner gets a recording contract and a chance to make a music video! Maybe next year we will also hear original songs and turn this from a sort of a karaoke contest into a real thing? Time will tell....

The Asiavision finalists are Lesmana Vilmi (Indonesia) and Adi Subari (Indonesia) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AZE2iTiNg0

The Arabvision finalists are Jawhar Karim (Iraq) and Mounir El-Bentite (Morocco) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E48ieqtD7QY
The Americavision finalists are Pascal Gaudion (Canada) and Norlan Leygonier Santana (Cuba) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUTl-cp2sRQ
The Afrovision finalists are I.T.D aka Jabril Mohammed & Mohamed Isse (Somalia) and Cecilian Naadensua Qaurshi (Ghana) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QybaA-Jp0RU
The Europevision finalists are Kadi Vija (Estonia) and Iolanta Savva (Moldova) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mfq8__Cjal

Quite interesting fact is Latvian Ruslanas Kirilkinas didn't made it to the final here despite making it already to the Finnish Idols final stages....

Last year's winner Samantha Sayegh from Lebanon
The Ourvision singing contest was born last year as one of the many spin offs of the Eurovision song contest 2007 happening in Helsinki. Ourvision is a singing contest organised by The International Cultural Centre Caisa and is aimed at anyone living in Finland with an immigrant background. The judges will be Tidjan from Kwan, Mariska, Kim Herold of Humane and record company Edel Records rep Ilkka Vainio. The final in Savoy Theatre in 2007 was won by Lebanese born Samantha Sayegh. After her victory she was offered two record deals but unfortunately for family reasons she had to return to Lebanon just months after her win. Sofy Kapepula from Congo was the runner up and her career has been on hold as she had a baby after the contest. Eva Wong from Malaysia placed third and is still performing and will be on stage also tomorrow.

Comments

Unknown said…

A very nice initiative indeed!! At least it would make people proud of their culture even away from home! I wonder how the winners are chosen but most of the semi-finalists lack their ethnicity and sound more like western jingles. I guess the message is "It's ok to have your ethnicity but we accept you only when you sing like us since we are ignorant about your ethnicity". I hope I am wrong or else the the whole world will sound the same and its really boring!

12:47

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Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

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