Finalists of PNMS song contest to perform at Dec.17th night market

The seven finalists of the Palau National Marine Sanctuary’s song contest are set to perform at Saturday’s night market—the final one of the year. After the performance, the audience will vote for their favorite, who will win the most popular song. The top three winners as determine by the judges will also be announced after all seven performers have debut their songs.

For this competition, PICRC staff first met with local artists, discussed the content, and received feedback. When the contest was first announced, 22 original songs were submitted that underwent two rounds of judging. In the first round, they were judged on lyrics only. After the first round, 16 songs remained, which were then judged on both lyrics and music. In this round, the top seven were selected. The top seven, listed by alphabetical order are: Adora Nobuo, Howard Charles, Kelau Remeliik, Kendall Titiml, Neil Fisher, Sarah Sugiyama and Sharon Sato.

Palau International Coral Reef Center (PICRC) launched the song competition about the Palau National Marine Sanctuary (PNMS) to raise awareness with a different audience than the one who is normally reached through the standard outreach. “We knew that we have very talented local artists that we can utilize for outreach. After receiving the submissions, we were amazed at the quality of the lyrics and the music. We are excited to showcase these very talented Palauan artists at the last night market of the year”, stated Mr. Singe Hideos, Communications and Outreach Officer at PICRC.