News

  • Rockies Down Under Shakuhachi Camp

    The 2008 10th Annual Rockies Camp will be held in Sydney immediately before WSF08, 2-4 July 2008. For more information and to register for the "Rockies Camp Down Under", please visit the website

  • December 24, 2007

    Details about the S-1 Grand Prix Young Performers Competition are now online. Learn More.

  • November 21, 2007

    You can now register on-line for WSF08! Register here.

  • September 10, 2007

    Accommodation and Add On Tours page has been updated. View and book accommodation and optional tours on line!

  • April 16, 2007

    The new Festival website is up and running! Check back for updates to the site as the festival nears.

S-1 Grand Prix Young Performers Competition

Rules

Entry Deadline: 29 February 2008

Application Requirements: aged 39 years or less on 30 June 2008. You are ineligible if your 40th birthday was/is before or on 30 June 2008.

Application Process: Record your own performance, convert the recording to an mp3 file and email the file to the Competition Supervisor at 'wsf08s1[at]gmail[dot]com'.

The subject of the email should be “S-1 World Grand Prix preliminary”.

In the body of the email, include your name, address (including country) and the name of the piece. Please use either English or Japanese.

The Competition Supervisor will immediately send a confirmation email after receiving your entry. If you do not receive a reply within 48 hours, please check to see if your email and mp3 attachment went through successfully.

Contest Entry Fee: none

Final Selection: Entrants who are chosen in the preliminary round will compete in the final round during WSF2008, by performing in the Finalists Concert in Sydney.

Choice of Piece: You can perform any shakuhachi solo, regardless of genre. One’s own compositions however, are not acceptable. (The piece submitted in the initial application must be the same piece performed during the Finalists Concert.)

Time Limit: 4 minutes or less for the preliminary round (an abridged version of the piece is acceptable). 6 minutes or less for the final round

Judges: Christopher Yohmei Blasdel, Teruo Furuya, Yoshio Kurahashi, Riley Lee, Hozan Nomura, Veronique Piron, Ralph Samuelson, Ronnie Seldin, David Wheeler. Judges for the preliminary round and the final round may differ.

Notification of Results of Preliminary Round: 30 April 2008 on WSF08 website

Prize Money: The following number of finalists will be chosen from these countries:

Japan – 5; The Americas – 3; Australia – 2 ;Rest of the World (Europe, Asia, Africa, etc) – 2. Total finalists: 12

Finalists of the preliminary round will receive free registration for WSF08 ($500).

The ten finalists outside of Australia will receive an additional $500 in cash assistance towards their Sydney airfare.

The top three contestants will be chosen at the Finalist Concert and awarded the following prize money: 1st $1200, 2nd $1000, 3rd $800.

All prize money is in Australian dollars.

Jury System: Anyone can apply to be ‘public’ judge for the preliminary round.

By paying a participation fee of AUS$20, one will receive the original recordings from all of the preliminary round contestants, after the closing date, and can vote for one or more of the contestants, to a value of 2 points. The total points voted in this manner will make up a maximum of 20% of the final decision for the preliminary round.

Deadline for applying to be a ‘public’ judge is 29 February 2008.

If you are interested in becoming a ‘public’ judge, visit the 'Join the Jury' page.

You do not have to attend WSF08 to become a ‘public’ judge.

The ‘public’ jury system will not apply in the final round of the Competition.