Donegal’s public and music lovers have been asked to vote for rising songwriter Eve Belle as she is one of ten final contestants of the Le Crunch Apple of My Eye Song Contest.
The online competition has been running for several weeks with hundreds of entries from around the country, before it was whittled down to the final ten, with Eve as Donegal’s sole representative at the finals stage.
No stranger to the music scene, Eve has played a number of festivals over the years including, Electric Picnic, Errigal Arts Festival and Derry Music City Festival. She has supported the likes of Altan, Mary Chapin Carpenter and Mick Flannery. Last year saw her sign to UK independent label Lab records.f
Along with nine other semi-finalists from around Ireland, Eve will record a video for her track with Joe.ie and the public will be asked to vote for her on the website, with five of the entries going through to a national final at Whelan’s in Dublin on Wednesday, March 9.
There, a panel of music industry judges – Niamh Farrell (HamsandwicH), Paddy McKenna (RTE and Joe.ie) and Shane Dunne (Indiependence Festival Director) – will choose the winner who will walk away with €2000.
“It’s a great opportunity for budding Irish artists to have their talents showcased to a huge audience,” says Paddy McKenna, “and also have their song checked out by some influential people from the Irish music industry. The quality of entries into the competition this year was amazingly high, and to narrow it down to a final ten was a difficult process. We hope the public get behind their favourites over the coming weeks.”
Voting is now taking place at Joe.ie and Her.ie and will remain open to the public until March 2.