News

07/06/2012

The Gerry Rafferty Songwriting Prize

Burnsong, in association with Renfrewshire Council and The Year of Creative Scotland, is delighted to announce a song writing competition in memory of the talented and widely-respected Renfrewshire songwriter, Gerry Rafferty, who died last year.

The competition, open to Renfrewshire songwriters of all genres, will offer the winner a place at The UK Songwriting Festival 2012.

The UK Songwriting Festival is an annual five-day residential intensive song-writing bootcamp, now in its 9th year, but held in Scotland for the first time in 2012.

From the 12-17th August, the winner will meet and work with other songwriters from around the UK at Shennaton House and receive mentoring from the distinguished tutors of Bath Spa University’s Songwriting Masters degree, as well as Ivor Novello-nominated Snow Patrol collaborator Iain Archer.

The winner will also be offered the opportunity to perform at two special shows on 16th & 17th August.

Burnsong Chair of Trustees, Ronald Gurr says: “It is a fitting legacy and will ensure that a new generation of local songwriters will get the best possible start to their professional creative career.”

The competition will be judged by Jim Gellatly (Clyde 1), Douglas T. Stewart (BMX Bandits) and Emma Gillespie (Emma's Imagination). Each judge will pick their favourite track and then all three will vote on the final three songs, with the winner being the song with at least two votes out of three. The judging panel will be chaired by Ronald Gurr (Burnsong) and Martha Rafferty (daughter of Gerry Rafferty).

New music mogul, DJ and judge for the competition Jim Gellatly says: “It’s an honour to be asked to judge such a prestigious competition, especially in the name of a legendary figure like the late Gerry Rafferty. I’m looking forward to hearing the submissions, which I’m sure will prove that we continue to punch above our weight as a nation when it comes to the creative arts.”

Detailed competition rules as well as submission requirements are listed below.

Competition Rules

Applicants must be 18+ and from the Renfrewshire area.
Applicants may submit up to 2 songs of any genre.
Each individual song must be no more than 4 mins in length.
Songs must be original, written by the submitting artist and contain no explicit lyrics.
Submitted songs must be currently unreleased*
Winner must be available to attend the songwriting week and the two performances.
The deadline is the 6th July at 11pm
The winner will be announced on the last week of July.

Submission Requirements

Songs should be submitted to the Burnsong SoundCloud account (http://soundcloud.com/burnsong).

Send me your sounds

A contact name, phone number and postal address must be included in the

description section of the submitted song or it will be invalid

For the purposes of this competition ‘unreleased’ will mean not commercially released by a

record label.

About Gerry Rafferty

Born in Paisley and raised on a diet of Irish and Scottish folk songs, he was later influenced by songwriters such as Lennon and Mccartney, Bob Dylan and Paul Simon. With an exceptional talent for melody and harmony coupled with a beautifully soulful voice he went on to achieve International success with solo hits 'Baker Street', 'Right Down the Line' and with the band 'Stealers Wheel' the hit song 'Stuck In The Middle With You'.

Rafferty’s musical legacy spans over several decades and its endurance is a testament to the timeless quality of the man and his music. With the Gerry Rafferty Songwriting Prize this legacy now extends beyond his own musical contributions, allowing other talented artists the opportunity to further their career with support from his daughter Martha Rafferty. It is with great appreciation that the competition can be run in his name.

Says Martha, "I'm delighted that the legacy my Father created can go on to inspire and enable another songwriter to be given a platform for their voice to be heard. It's a long and difficult road to choose and opportunities to breakthrough are few and far between. I'll be listening for conviction, heart and originality - Good Luck!"

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