Regulations

The Competition

The V-Accordion Festival is an international competition open to both junior and senior soloists. The UK national final is to be held as part of the NAO national finals, at Blackpool on April 23rd 2010. The winner of the senior category will win a Roland FR7x V-Accordion. The winner of the junior category will win a Roland FR2 V-Accordion. The International Final will be held in Italy in October 2010, where the winner will win 5,000 Euros.

How to Enter

• The competition is open to any UK resident, amateur or professional aged 18 and over (senior soloist) or under 17 (junior soloist) by the entry deadline of 28th February 2010.
• Entry is free. Each entry must be accompanied by a either an audio or digital video (DV) tape or DVD of your recorded performance.
• Your performance must be no longer than 5 minutes in length and can feature any genre of music.
• The recording does not need to be professionally filmed but needs to be of sufficient quality to enable the judges to clearly see and hear the artist/s performance.
• The name of the piece/s of music and the composer must be stated verbally at the beginning of your recording.
• You may enter this stage of the competition using any type of accordion.
• The adjudication of recorded material will take place on March 1st 2010 and entrants will be notified as to their status in the competition in the week following the adjudication.
• National (and international finalists) will be required to perform using a Roland V-Accordion. Loan units will be made available for practice purposes 3 weeks before the national final.

Requirements to be a contestant

SENIOR SOLOIST division

• Participants who were born before April 1st, 1992 belong to the senior category. Minimum required age: 18 years.
• Any genre of music is allowed.
• At the National /International Final, the finalists are allowed to use just one V-Accordion; they are not allowed to use any external module. They are allowed to use any V-Accordion onboard orchestral sounds in addition to the V-Accordion onboard accordion sounds and PAD, PAD loop functions only for FR-2/FR-2b models.
• At the National/International Final, contestants may not use any audio playback as CD, iPOD etc. (as a backing track) and/or external sound modules, MIDI sequencers.
• The winner of the previous International Festival may not participate in other V-Accordion Festivals.
• The winners of the National steps may participate again if they didn’t win the International steps.

JUNIOR SOLOIST division

• Participants who were born on or after April 1992 belong to the Junior category. Maximum allowed age: 17 years.
• Any genre of music is allowed.
• At the National Final, the finalists are allowed to use just one V-Accordion; they are not allowed to use any external module. They are allowed to use any V-Accordion onboard orchestral sounds in addition to the V-Accordion onboard accordion sounds and PAD, PAD loop functions only for FR-2/FR-2b models.
• At the National Final, contestants may not use any audio playback as CD, iPOD etc. (as a backing track) and/or external sound modules, MIDI sequencers.
• The Junior soloist division may only participate in the National step. The winner is not allowed to participate in the International step.

Adjudication of Recorded Materials

• The pre-selection session is not open to the public.
• Judgement shall be made by a jury appointed by Roland UK, based on the video performance submitted by each applicant.
• At the pre-selection the jury will choose the contestants that shall be entitled to compete in the national final (national finalists).
• A maximum of ten National Finalists per category will be chosen. If there aren’t sufficient numbers of competitors of an appropriate standard, Roland reserve the right to reduce the number of finalists OR combine the two categories with one qualifier OR cancel the Final.
• Roland UK will not be able to return the recordings to entrants nor give any reasons regarding their qualification.

National Final

• The National Final will be open to the public
• Every National Finalist (senior and junior soloists) shall play for a maximum of 10 minutes, on stage in front of an audience and the jury members
• At the senior and junior divisions, National Finalists may play only V-Accordion for a maximum of 10 minutes (No limitations about the number of songs).

International Final

• The International Final will take place in Italy during October 2010. The International Final is an event which will be open to the public.
• Roland UK will send the winner from the senior category to compete against winners of other European national Roland V-Accordion challenges.
• During the 1st day of the International final all finalists shall perform for a maximum of 10 minutes in front of the jury.
• On the 2nd day the final round shall take place. At the final round all participants may perform for a maximum of 5 minutes. The 1st, 2nd and 3rd ranking winners will be announced.
• Each contestant has to play a different programme for both the first round (20th) and the second, final round (21st).
• The prizes are as follows:
• The 1st prize is: 5000 Euro
• The 2nd prize is: 2000 Euro
• The 3rd prize is: 1000 Euro

What the judges will be looking for

• Technical skill
• Musical Interpretation
• Creativity/Imagination
• Specific skill in exploiting the whole potential of V-Accordion

SCORE RANGE
Not Good	Good	Very Good	Excellent
1 – 5	6 – 13	14 – 19	20 – 25

• Each one of the above (a-d) criteria points will be assigned a mark from 1 (lowest mark) to 25 (highest mark) according to above “SCORE RANGE” table.
• The sum of all marks will determine the overall points (full mark =100 points) and the final judgement of contestants.
• Once all the voting sheets have been collected, the one featuring the highest mark and the one featuring the lowest mark will be discarded. The marks coming from all the other remaining voting sheets will be taken into consideration and the sum of all their marks will represent the overall mark of the candidate.
• All marks will be published in the http://www.v-accordionfestival.com

General Rules and Conditions

• The jury has the right not to award any prize whenever candidates do not prove to have enough artistic skills.
• No judgement may be expressed by any jury member who is acquainted with one or more contestants because of family ties or educational relations (up to two years before the contest).
• Should a member of the jury have a relationship, professional or otherwise, with one of the above categories of contestant in the competition the member of the jury will not be able to vote for that contestant and an average mark from the other three jurors will be added to the total score in place of that juror.
• The judgement expressed by the jury is final and irrevocable.
• Any possible use of auditions and of the final concert for TV or radio broadcast purposes shall not make contestants eligible for any fee.
• Applying for the contest means accepting these regulations without conditions.
• In the National Final, contestants shall pay for their own travel and accommodation expenses.
• In the International Final the cost of contestants’ travel and accommodation shall be covered by Roland UK and Roland Europe.
• Roland does not accept any responsibility for any occurrence to contestants before, during and after the contest.
• In the event that the national winners cannot attend the international final they must let Roland UK know 3 weeks before the final so an alternative can be sought.