CUBADISCO 2011 Award 

The Cuban Music Institute and the CUBADISCO Organizing comittee announce the CUBADISCO 2011 Award

Each year since 1997 there takes place the CUBADISCO Award, whose main aim is the recognition and stimulus to the quality of album and audio-visual production in Cuba and the contribution to its promotion and diffusion.

Without trying to substitute any other event, award or recognition established in the national music system or general culture, throughout its editions the CUBADISCO Award has awarded the best things in Cuban musical talent, while it has stimulated the healthy competition between the record companies and labels and other competing institutions, and it has constituted a stimulus for the musical improvement, in the artistic and aesthetic productions.

The Committee of the CUBADISCO Award will be directed by a president designed for that and composed by highly qualified professionals (musicians, music specialists, journalists, critics, moviemakers, sound engineers, directors of musical programs from the radio and TV, designers, among others), related to the production and spreading of sound productions and audio-visuals.

Bases

There will be allowed to participate sound or audio-visual musical productions edited by the recording houses and labels as well as Cuban and foreign institutions related to the Cuban musical work. There will also be allowed those alternative musical productions as long as they are represented by an institution related to the cultural field.

The productions to be presented should have been edited between January 1 and December 31, 2010. There shall also be considered special cases of the productions that have been edited and published in previous occasions and never competed in past editions of the contest. In this case there will be considered for up to two years.

The CUBADISCO Award will consider the quality and integrability of the particular musical productions which will be competing in the event as candidates to the award and not the work, trajectory or importance within the national culture and music, nor any other of the many virtues that may have the artists whose work are included in these productions.

The Committee of the award does not consider the aspects of popularity or the sales of the presented productions. The Cubadisco Award and its committee are strictly academical and will follow the aspects pointed out in the Number 3.

There may be inscribed as many record and video musical productions as considered by the institutions and record labels and companies.

The inscription of the productions will take place during th month of December, 2010, for which there should be handed in:

Inscription request which should specify all of the proposed productions, code, interpreter and the category for which they are proposed.

There should be handed in five copies of each production with the corresponding sworn declaration to certify the dates of edition and circulation of the productions.

In the case of the Cuban and foreign record labels and companies that are to be found in Cuba, who are authorized for the production and distribution of Cuban music productions made by other foreign recording labels that are not represented in the country and which are being proposed for the Award, they should also present the agreement of the foreign editor label to present these productions for the competition, in writing.

The institutions hoping for the competition are responsible for the inscription of their productions. Once inscribed, under no circumstances may the productions be withdrawn from the contest.

The competing institutions will learn of their respective admited productions before the process of nomination.

The productions proposed for the contest that have omisions or mistakes in its credits will not be accepted nor inscribed in the contest.

The Executive Group of the Committee will be able to decide in which category will each production be admitted, regardless of the category for which the different institutions have proposed them. The categories are operational and do not represent musical genres, even though they may coincide with them.

The Committee of the Award, based on th quantity and quality of the proposed productions may create or eliminate any category or fuse some of them together, or leave the category empty, according to the strategic aims defined for each edition of the contest.

The Committee of the Award, after watching and listening all of the productions, will determine those which will be nominated for the awards in each of the categories. The maximum number of nominations in each category will be up to five productions. As an exception and after consulting the President of the Organizing Committee of Cubadisco, the Committee of the Award will be able to propose some modification.

The Members of the Committee of the Award or other specialists who have productions competing in any of the categories, will not be allowed to participate in the debates and analysis of the Committee of the Award and its juries.

The results of the nominations will be made public in a press conference.

The categories to be awarded in the contest will be the following:

Anthology
Compilation
Soundtrack
Cancionística
Fusion
Jazz
Popular traditional music
Folk music
Concert music
Vocal music
Choral music
Instrumental music/ Instrumental vocal
Music for children
Concert soloist (instrumental and vocal)
Popular dance music
Trova
Trova-pop-rock
Pop
Rock
Rap-reggueton
Dance
Testimony
Recording notes
Music notes
Recording
Recording on site
Opera prima
Graphic design
DVD
Graphic design
DVD (author, interior design)
DVD (multimedia)
DVD (show)
Video clip: corresponding just to CDs inscribed in the present edition of the contest.
Multimedia: should deal about musical themes.

Musical documentary: It could be about musical genres, music personalities, with testimony character, historic character, among others.

Apart from the category awards, the Committee of the Award should grant the following prizes:

o Sound producer: following a proposal of the Organizing Committee the award to the Sound Producer should be granted to important personalities who have had exceptional results in the album production world throughout their artistic career or whose productions have reached a significant level is a specific period in the music stage.

o Composer Award: It should be granted to the composer of a piece contained in one of the productions nominated to the contest.

o Special Award: It should be granted to recording productions with a singular or exceptional value. The productions proposed for Special Aswards should not be competing in the established categories. Its exceptional values should be argumented in witting.

o CUBADISCO Honor Awards: Should be proposed by the President of the Organizing Committee. They should be handed in to Cuban or foreign personalities and to institutions who have held especial contributions to creation, promotion and productions of high artistic and cultural importance.

o International award: should be handed in to phonograms by foreigner authors or interpreters who reflect creatively the most authentic musical values of their people and their compromise with the defense and the promotion of cultural diversity, in correspondence with the aesthetic proposals defended by CUBADISCO. There will be taken into account record pieces circulated in the years previous to the realization of the International CUBADISCO Festival in Havana and they should be determined by the Organizing Committee, from the advises of a group of Cuban and foreign experts composed by important personalities. The award will have a honorific character and it will be made public in one of the concerts of the International Festival.

o Great Award: It will be chosen considering only the awarded productions in the different categories. It will be given to the musical productions with the highest quality taking into account:

- A drama objective achieved in each theme, between themes and in the production.
- High realization with high aesthetic, artistic and communication values
- The presentation of the product considering it as a whole.

The decisions of the Committee of the Award and Juries are final.

Inscription in the contest implies an agreement with its bases.

The awards will be made public in the Awarding Ceremony organized for that purpose.

City of Havana, September 2010.
Neris González Bello and Ciro Benemelis Durán
Presidents Award Organizing Comité CUBADISCO
Translation: Karen Lopez (Cubarte)