Kyrgyzstan wins Turkey’s first pan-Turkic pop contest on TRT
ISTANBUL
A 22-year-old from Kyrgyzstan has won the “Eurasia Star” pop music competition in Istanbul, returning home with $30,000, the eurasianet.org website has reported.After two weeks and six rounds of performances, a unanimous panel of judges, and fans voting by text message, chose Guljigit Kalykov the winner on Jan. 14. The next Eurasia Star contest will be held in Kyrgyzstan.
Singer Gulnur Satylganova, who holds the state-conferred distinction of Popular Performer of the Kyrgyz Republic, said: “the victory by our compatriot, particularly in the first year of such a project’s creation, raises the level of Kyrgyzstan’s live musical performance and art in the eyes of the international musical community as a country that can give birth to and nurture stars on an international scale.”
Uzbekistan abstained from the contest, which included most other Turkic-speaking lands, specifically Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, northern Cyprus, Turkey and Turkmenistan.
The Eurasia Star event was organized by the Turkish State Radio and Television Corporation (TRT).
Kyrgyzstan, meanwhile, has had recent success in producing pop sensations lately.
