The Finnish broadcaster YLE has opened the song search for next year’s Uuden musiikin kilpailu (UMK). The search was opened on Monday August 21st 7.00 CET and will be open until Thursday August 24th 22.59 CET. You can read the rules of UMK24 here https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MuX6WLq5LDz3DbS6oApPf_k6YLVQ43RA/view
and send you song to the contest here
https://ats.talentadore.com/apply/new-music-competition-umk-2024/ZvrJq5
UMK has been the Finnish national selection format for Eurovision since 2012, and during the last couple of years UMK has grown to be the number one music contest in Finland. Some of the biggest names of the Finnish music have taken part in UMK in the 2020’s and many of the participating songs have become huge hit songs in Finland. The success of UMK has also reflected to Finland’s success in Eurovision: Finland has qualified for the final three years in a row and finished in Top 10 twice, in 2021 with Blind Channel and 2023 with Käärijä.
Just like in the previous years, the finalists of UMK24 are decided by the professional jury consisted of music professionals. Tapio Hakanen, the music chief of the radio station YleX, will continue as the head of the jury:
The interest towards UMK has grown year after year among both public and artists, and the Käärijä-phenomenon of the last season made the ecstasy bigger than ever before,
Hakanen tells YLE and continues:
A big part of recent years’ biggest Finnish musical phenomenons and hit songs have come through this open song contest, and that proves the status of UMK. UMK is not only the field of the big artists’ and record companies, but every year there have been great indie- and small record companies’ artists in the contest. Soon we’ll see, who’s the next Erika Vikman, Blind Channel, BESS, KUUMAA or Käärijä. It’s genuinely about the song, so now it’s worth to apply!
As we can remember, last year’s UMK was won by Käärijä and his party anthem ”Cha Cha Cha”, which ended up as runner-up of Eurovision 2023. You can rewatch the amazing performance Käärijä gave us in Liverpool here:
