The search for the Finnish national selection for Eurovision, Uuden musiikin kilpailu (UMK) 2021 has started. The search is open in the website of UMK until September 7th 22.59 CET. The contestants of UMK 2021 are revealed in January, and the final of the contest will be held in Tampere in February 20th 2021. You can apply to UMK 2021 here: https://yle.fi/aihe/artikkeli/2020/09/01/haku-uuden-musiikin-kilpailuun-on-avattu

The finalists of UMK 2021 will be chosen by a professional jury, which is led by Tapio Hakanen, the music manager of the radio channel YleX. This is what Hakanen tells about the contest:

UMK unites Finns with the help of music by providing one of the biggest TV-shows of the year. Every spring each one of us finds inside her or him the music professional, who wants to have an influence on how and by whom Finland is represented in Eurovision – the biggest music show of the world. UMK offers all artists an opportunity to rise to a new level on their career, and to music writers a chance to get their song to the knowledge of 180 million viewers. With enthusiasm I wait what kind of great setting gets along this year.

In 2021 UMK will be held for the 10th time. For the honor of that there is a contest where you can design a new UMK trophy. The idea of this contest is to design a trophy that will be going around from UMK winner to another, and the first receiver of the trophy will be the winner of UMK 2021. The contest is open for everybody until September 7th, and you can take part in the contest by sending a draft of the trophy and estimate of its production expense to Yle. You can read more about this contest here: https://yle.fi/aihe/artikkeli/2020/05/15/suunnittele-umk-voittajan-palkinto

In 2020 UMK returned as an open contest after two years of invitation contest. Six finalist competed in the final of UMK 2020 in the beginning of March, and as we can remember, the contest was won by Aksel Kankaanranta with his song Looking back: