European Social Sound 4U – The winners of the Matera national final

The national final of European Social Sound U4, the first European format that combines a contest for high-level emerging bands with an information initiative on projects financed by the European Social Fund, was won by the PopulAlma band.

The young band, which offers ethnic folk music , was rewarded by the online vote and by the jury for the song “Nun exist you race” after passing the regional selections of Umbria. The trio Emma Morton & the Graces, from the Tuscany selection, was instead awarded the critics’ prize awarded by the three judges of the evening. In the final on December 14, on the stage of the Raffaele Gervasio Auditorium in Matera, the 8 groups that passed the 4 regional selections (Basilicata, Sicily, Tuscany and Umbria) performed in two stages.

The first group to take the stage was Respiro, a duo from Salento, present in Matera with two songs, “unPOPositivo” and “The other face of the Moon”; to follow the very young Sicilians Bliss with “Happy Times Sad Times” and “Mind Blow”; then it was the turn of the Tuscans Emma Morton & The Grace, a mix of roots-rock contaminations lost between Scotland and Italy, with “Pray Fir Yer Bones” and “Restless Waves”; to close the first part of the Umbrian selection the Effetto Contrario with “Pensieri al finestrino” and “Giorno di novembre”.

It was then the turn of the super guest, the bassist of Afterhours, Roberto Dell’Era to entertain the audience with two songs taken from his soloist repertoire. The competition then continued with the Potentino-Viterbo duo of Serena MaTù (“Without thoughts”, “I can tell you that”), the Sicilians Archinuè (“Corteo”, “Biancaneve doesn’t want to wake up”), the Flame Parade (with “Cosmic Ghatering”, “Black and White”) and finally with the winning band PopulAlma (“Nun esisti race”, “La Curdigliera”).

This year, with a completely new format, the event took place in four. Thanks to an agreement signed between the Regions and also supported by (ANPAL), the National Agency for Active Labor Policies, after two editions with great feedback and media attention in the Umbria region, has been successfully replicated also in Tuscany, Basilicata and the Region Sicilian, for a total of eight live evenings and lots of good music thanks to the dozens of bands that participated in the various web and live selections.

The Matera evening had an exceptional jury led by Roberto Dell’Era, bassist of Afterhours and collaborator of many musicians including Dente and Calibro 35.

Dell’Era, also a member of The Winstons trio, is well known for his remarkable live activity. Together with him in the jury Daniela Amenta, journalist and writer expert in music and shows who currently hosts “Cactus – Just a little water” with Concita De Gregorio broadcast every day on Radio Capital and Silvia Boschero, radio host of Radio Rai for which she conducted , among other things, Moby Dick, King Kong and Stereo Notte, while currently hosting “La version delle Due” on Radio 2 with Andrea Delogu.

In addition to the judges’ vote, public participation has also been foreseen through online voting on the website www.europeansocialsound.it The winning band, PopulAlma, received as a prize 10 thousand euros in services useful for promoting their artistic activity.

The “Critics’ Prize” with a prize pool of 3 thousand euros always in services was won by Emma Morton & the Graces. The first two finishers also received a trophy, while all participating groups were honored with certificates of participation and a photo shoot of 10 shots in digital format.

Finally, during the evening, four guests from the audience were also awarded. case among those who voted for the best promotional video of European policies among those broadcast during the evening.

European Social Sound 4U also had great visibility on the social channels of the event. Over 250 original contents have been published between FB, IG and TW and the final in Matera has been watched live by over 1,200 users. The Instagram page, very active with the Stories, has had peaks of 30 thousand views per week while the Fadebook page has received over a million unique views.