The Sunday News
Pabalelo Tlou Sunday Leisure Reporter
THE St Marys Cathedral Basilica will be hosting its second edition of gospel season auditions immediately after Easter with the purpose of unearthing aspiring youthful and talented gospel artistes to a wider audience.The gospel event, which saw last year’s winner Chido Marange walking away with $500 and a recording contract is coming back bigger and better despite lack of corporate sponsorship.
Organisers said the Cathedral gospel talent competition was a platform for aspiring gospel artistes with “heavenly” voices to showcase their talents to a wider audience outside the church.
The auditions, organised by the youth team, Come Let’s Sing Gospel Team would only include Cathedral church goers ranging from the age of five to 35. The event will stretch for the whole year as the team will be travelling to various areas in Matebeleland South for the auditions and the finals will be held in December.
Unlike the previous year where auditions were only held in Bulawayo, the 2014 event will see auditions spreading to Matebeleland South to Cathedral mission schools like Empandeni, Embakwe and Ekusileni.
Speaking to Sunday Leisure, the director of the team Innocent Ncube said the main purpose of the event is to scout for hidden talent bringing it to the spotlight.
He said the other objective was also to keep the young boys and girls occupied so as to reduce chances of them committing crime.
“We are doing this so as to help talented singers by exposing them to the corporate world and for us this is a noble cause as we want to keep the youth busy and limit crime rates in the country,” he said.
The auditions are sponsored by Glennino Business Consultants (GBC) media, a wholly Catholic organisation.
Ncube said there were no corporate sponsors in the meantime due to the liquidity crunch.
“For now we do not have corporate sponsors due to the liquidity crunch but Edgars has promised to clothe our contestants which would be an advertising opportunity for them,” Ncube said.
There would be two categories in which the contestants will be participating. There will be a single category where solo artistes will take to the stage and a group of not more than six members will participate.
Those wishing to participate are expected to pay a joining fee of $5 for solo participants and $10 for the group.
The contestants are allowed to copycat from their favourite artistes up to the semi-finals, in the finals they are expected to have their own compositions in which the organisers have the right to use the song for themselves.
“We do not mind what the contestants would sing but we expect the finalists to come up with their own compositions which we will have full authority over,” Ncube added.
Two men and two women are expected to make up the panel of judges, among them Eric Moyo from Idols. Other judges are yet to be confirmed.
Big prizes are set to be won with the best single performer expected to walk away with a box guitar and $400 while the best group performers will walk away with a keyboard and the same monetary prize.
One of the organisers said it was now time for gospel artistes to take a giant leap into the mainstream and bring their music out of churches onto the world stage, adding that last year winners would act as ambassadors.
Ncube said the registration had already started and those willing to participate could now register at Bambanani Centre.
The organising team in conjunction with some of last year gospel audition participants is set to release an album titled Come Let’s Sing Gospel Volume1 this year.
