Choose the winner for Gift Of Song

SINGAPORE — Go ahead, have your say: You can now vote which song will take top prize for MediaCorp’s SG50: The Gift Of Song, the song-writing competition organised by MediaCorp to celebrate Singapore’s 50th birthday. The three shortlisted songs are Being Here by songwriting duo Ciao Turtle (Dennis Ng and Jared Chan); We Are Stars by graphic designer Andrew Lee; and These Are The Days by restaurant owner Lee Chin Sin.

The finalists’ songs have been made into music videos, performed by winners from MediaCorp’s talent shows: Project SuperStar’s Alfred Sim takes on We Are Stars, The Final 1 winner Farisha Ishak performs These Are The Days and noted singer Shabir sings Being Here. The music videos will be shown on MediaCorp’s TV channels, out-of-home screens on Toggle. The songs will also be played on MediaCorp’s radio stations.

Public voting for the songs, which will take place via telephone and Toggle’s website, will begin at midnight tonight (Jan 8) and end on March 1 at 11.59pm. Votes make up 60 per cent of the overall scores. The winning song will be turned into a “grand-scale music video”, which will be released in the lead-up to this year’s National Day Parade, while the winning songwriter will receive a cash prize of S$10,000.

MediaCorp’s managing director, Television Bernard Lim, who was one of the judges for the competition said: “We hope Singaporeans will step forward and help us to choose the (winning) eventual song. We think Singaporeans will be able to relate to the song … and eventually we will have a gift for Singapore, for SG50.”

Fellow Gift Of Song judge Jeremy Monteiro added: “Seeing the final renditions - it’s very nice, the songs have become very moving. The performances are great, the singers are well chosen … Hopefully, (the voters) will respond and choose the song that moves them.”

The competition attracted close to 1,000 entries within a six-week submission period last year, and the finalists were chosen by a panel of judges that included Lim, Monteiro, musician Dick Lee, composer Sydney Tan, Georgina Chang, MediaCorp’s vice-president for English Programming-Music (Radio); and Zakiah A Halim, senior vice-president, Malay broadcast division at MediaCorp.