Judging of the recent Soca Monarch competition

Mar 05, 2009 Letters

Dear Editor,
We have seen time and again this distasteful display of judging at various events in the past and no one has tried to remedy same.
There must be competent persons selected to judge competitions of such magnitude, especially since their decision can help to market something of a high quality internationally.
Soca Monarch, Chutney and Calypso competitions are events most, if not all Guyanese look forward to during our Mash celebrations.

In your auditions, one must be frank in selecting the pieces for the competition and discard those that do not reach the required standard, for it is better to know that, for example, you have eight songs of quality than for a crowd to sit and languish listening to substandard entries.
Among the panel of judges there were only two persons who were really qualified to adjudicate.
The others were to be guided by ear sound or by who they felt performed better. I would like to recommend that for the Soca art form to survive in Guyana, organisers must select suitably qualified persons to do the job, or it is going to be a dying art just like the Calypso and the Masquerade band in Guyana.

In concluding I ask a few questions:
1. Is Guyana preparing to reach international standards?
2. Did the judges of the competition follow the guidelines pointed out by the MC?
3. Can a competitor sing one verse and a chorus repeatedly, and earn the Soca Monarch crown?
4. How did some of those songs reach to the finals?
5. Are the organisers trying to make a mockery of what is truly Soca?
6. Can the winning song represent Guyana at any international contest?
J. Kryen Hoff

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