Since the Grand Finale Concert of the Joy Happenings Competition back in April, many of you have asked how the contestants were judged and winners determined. To answer your questions, here’s Joy Bechtler, Artistic Director of Operanauts, with an explanation of the process:
“The Joy Happenings Competition consisted of three rounds: preliminaries, semifinals (‘demi-’ in French), and finals.
The preliminaries were held remotely. More than 30 candidates in Congo submitted short videos of themselves singing, and Brian Ming Chu and I, both voice teachers, scored the performances according to several criteria, including good intonation, rhythmic pulse, musical phrasing, communication, and presentation. This scoring was much like evaluating a university student jury.
From the original 32 candidates, 26 semifinalists were selected to advance.
The semifinals were held in-person at a 500-seat venue in Kinshasa. Singers took turns performing arias in front of a live, ticket-buying audience. Each ticket came with a space for spectators to vote for their favorite singer. This time, candidates were scored based both on judges’ evaluations and audience votes. The 20 candidates with the greatest combined judges’ score and number of audience votes advanced to the Grand Finale Concert.