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Contest 2024

Presentation

Cover me '24

The first musical contest dedicated to Springsteen!

The “Cover Me” contest has been organized by NOI & SPRINGSTEEN in order to focus attention on the value of Springsteen's music and the talent of participating artists and bands, giving them space and visibility through social forums, the regular event of the Festival dedicated to Springsteen in Bergamo and several national radios.

The best band or best performing artist will be selected in this free competition. The contest is open to all artists; each artist or band can participate with a musical piece chosen from Bruce Springsteen’s outstanding repertoire. The piece must be reinterpreted and most importantly, the artist or band must “make it their own” without distorting the essence and melody. Songs identical to the original will not be accepted by the panel of judges and will not participate in the contest.

COVER ME The first musical contest dedicated to Springsteen

Regulations

Find out about the regulations and participate in the contest

01 How to register:
Registration will open on March 31, 2024. To register properly, you must send an email to info@noiespringsteen.com with the subject line "participation in musical contest" no later than 30 April 30 2024, including a biography, a photo, your contact information and a YouTube/Vimeo link in which the artist/group performs the song for the contest. The covers that reach us will be published on social media to introduce them to the public.

02 Selection:
By 15 May 2024, 20/30 songs (according to the number of participants) will be selected from those received by the Expert Panel of Judges and will be published by 31 May 2024 on the noiespringsteen.com website. After registering, the general public will be able to vote for the selected songs (until 30 June 2024) and the 10 songs that obtain the highest score, added to the votes given by the Expert Panel of Judges, will participate in the final phase scheduled for Sunday 14 July 2024 in Bergamo. The names of the 10 finalists will be announced by 5 July 2024. The Expert Panel of Judges, the audience attending the finals and those from home will determine the three winners of the "COVER ME 2024" Contest after listening to the live performances.

03 Categories admitted:
Bands and single artists from all musical genres can participate.

04 How the Contest will be conducted:
The songs selected by the Expert Panel of Judges will be published on the www.noiespringsteen.com website.
The audience will then vote on the 20/30 best songs. The vote combined with that of the Expert Panel of Judges will determine the 10 finalist covers.

The competition will take place on Sunday 14 July. Each band/artist will have approximately 10 minutes including preparation, performance of the song, technical evaluation and turning the stage over to the next group.
The sound check will be conducted previously, in a time slot to be defined.

05 Instruments
The stage is equipped with drums and amplifiers for guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. Groups must bring:
1. Their own instruments, excluding drums.
2. Any pedals and pedalboards.
3. Cymbals and drumsticks.

For organizational matters, please specify on the registration form if there is a left-handed drummer in addition to any special requests.

06 Expert Panel of Judges
The panel of judges, composed of experts, is responsible for selecting 20/30 covers from those received. The same panel of judges together with the audience will decide the winner of the Festival at the end of the day on Sunday 14 July 2024.
The President of the Panel of Judges will be Gino Castaldo.

07 Voting Procedure
The Expert Panel of Judges will evaluate each individual piece assigning a score from 0 to 5. The panel of judges will vote in a discretionary manner and in full autonomy. The score assigned by the President of the Expert Panel of Judges has a double value.
The 20 or 30 pieces that receive the highest score will participate in the second selection. The audience will be able to vote on every single song, in the same way, awarding a score from 0 to 5. In order to vote, you must register on the www.noiespringsteen.com website and access the GARA (CONTEST) section. You will be able to vote for all 20 or 30 pieces or only one, according to your preference.
During the final, the scores will be given in the same manner both by the audience attending the live performance as well as those from home and the Expert Panel of Judges. From 0 to 5 points will be awarded.
The final ranking will be determined by the total of the scores obtained according to the order of the partial rankings determined by the home audience, the attending audience and the Expert Panel of Judges. The points given through the ranking determined by the votes of the Expert Panel of Judges will have a coefficient of 2; therefore, in the event of a third-place winner, 16 points will be awarded instead of 8 points.

08 Prizes
The winner of the contest will receive a cash prize of €2,000.00. The runner-up will receive a cash prize of €1,000.00. The third-place contestant will receive a cash prize of €500.00. The winner of the Contest will be able to create a video clip in collaboration with Studio Da Re and play a live concert at Druso in Bergamo

09 Other information
Participation is free of charge.
All participants will be offered lunch and dinner on on Sunday 14 July 2024 at the event venue.
Each contest participant is responsible for paying for any accommodations, as well as any travel expenses and for reaching the event venue.

10 Technical organization: NOI & SPRINGSTEEN arose from a group of friends whose goal was to create a place (real for past events and those under construction, and virtual on these pages) where all of us, so very different yet all the while sharing the same… passion?... faith?… source of inspiration?... could come together and meet again. A community. People bound by a common interest. And “The Ties That Bind”, the subheading of our new name, makes this declaration.

11 Contact information
C/O Alberto Lanfranchi office – Via Palma il Vecchio, 111 – 24128 Bergamo (BG), Italy.
EM: info@noiespringsteen.com
F: Noi&Springsteen
Mobile: +39 338 2606461. www.noiespringsteen.com

12 Registration (HOW TO PARTICIPATE)
Send the requested data no later than 30 April 2024 to the following email address: info@noiespringsteen.com

Specify the following in your email:
01 - NAME OF THE BAND – NAMES OF BAND MEMBERS OR ARTIST.
02 - CONTACT INFORMATION.
03 - CV AND PHOTO.
04 - YOUTUBE/VIMEO LINK (with proposed song/cover).
05 - DECLARATION / CONSENT FORM *
06 - NOTES: indicate any specific requests or questions.

DOWNLOAD THE CONSENT FORM ( directly from the website )

CRITICS’ AWARD

COVER ME - The first musical contest dedicated to Springsteen! The Critics' Award is a supporting accolade in the COVER ME Musical Contest. It was established with the aim of having this prestigious award given by five expert journalists who have been appointed by the Contest.

Voting:
The members of the Panel of Judges will listen to all the songs registered in the contest and assign them a score from 0 to 3 points.
The President of the Panel of Judges will be CLAUDIO TROTTA.
The scoring criterion must respect the following credentials:
1-courage – 2-artistic choice – 3-performance and singing ability

Winner:
The artist or band with the highest score, given by the total of the votes of the 5 journalists, will be confirmed as the winner of the Cover Me Contest Critics’ Award. The prize will be awarded at the final of the COVER ME Contest 2024 5th Edition to be held in Bergamo on Sunday 14 July 2024.

In addition to the trophy, the winner will receive a prize of 500 euros and the chance to play at Druso Club in an evening entirely devoted to the winners of the COVER ME 2024 contest.

RECAP OF DATES

31/03/24Registration opens
30/04/24 Registration closes
15/05/24The names of the musicians who passed the first selection are announced
01/06/24 Home voting for the selection of the 10 finalists opens
30/06/24Home voting ends
05/07/24Finalists are announced
14/07/24GRAND FINALE OF THE COVER ME CONTEST 2024


Biographies

Expert panel of Judges

Gino Castaldo
Gino Castaldo

One of Italy's best-known music critics, for over 40 years he has been telling the stories of the great names in Italian and international music with images and words.
A journalist for La Repubblica since the newspaper was established in 1976, during his career he has interviewed all the giants of music - from Bob Dylan to Paul McCartney, from Lou Reed to Bruce Springsteen. In addition to the supplement Musica! he has edited numerous publishing initiatives for the Espresso Group, including record series such as "La storia del Jazz e l'America del Rock". From 2011 to 2017 he hosted Playlist on Radio Capital with Ernesto Assante. He was the author of musical programmes on Radio Tre and has carried out important cycles of musical narratives for Radio 2, some of them live entitled Let's Play, while he has been hosting Back2back with Ema Stokholma since 2018. For over ten years he has been taking his musical narratives to theatres and Italy’s most beautiful squares, depicting the big names in the history of Italian and international music, alternating words and music.
He conducted ten episodes of Magazzini Musicali on Rai2 in 2021 and his most recent books include Il romanzo della canzone italiana (Einaudi 2018) and Lucio Dalla (Mondadori, 2021), written with Ernesto Assante.

Giorgio Berta
Giorgio Berta

Born in Bergamo on 22.03.1960, he received his degree from the University of Bergamo in Economics and Commerce with a thesis in Tax Law regarding corporate accounting obligations.
Since 1988 he has been registered in section A of the Register of Certified Accountants and Accounting Experts of Bergamo.
After conducting the activity for five years at another professional’s studio until 1993, he opened his own office in Bergamo.
Currently he carries out his professional activities mainly in Bergamo, in via Mazzini, 4, in the Berta, Nembrini, Colombini and Associates studio of which he holds an absolute majority. Two partners and around 80 employees support him in the business. Members of the professional register amount to around 35. The firm conducts its activities mainly based on tax, corporate and insolvency consulting. A merger with another professional firm made it possible to include job counselling among the activities it offers. The studio is part of the professional ACB network.
From 2015 to 2017 he was the effective statutory auditor of Banca Popolare di Bergamo and holds the same role within the UBI group in relation to a number of investee companies.
Since 1988 he has been collaborating with the University of Bergamo where to date, he has held various positions. He has collaborated with industry magazines, in which he has published:
• “IVA sulle attività finanziarie” in “IVA 96 Analisi di alcune significative fattispecie giuridiche” edited by Claudio Sacchetto, Giuffrè (publisher).
• Il software destinato alla vendita” in “Società e Diritto” no. 1, May 1995 Il sole XXIV ore (publisher).
• “Affitto d’azienda: aspetti civilistici e tributari” in “Società e diritto” no. 12 December 1994 Pirola (publisher). On a regular basis for a certain period of time, he wrote for “L’informatore Pirola”.

He has also contributed, as co-author, to the publication of many other texts in the field. He began playing tennis at the age of 7 and in the early 1980s earned a B-level player classification.
Music, however, is his great passion. His father was an acclaimed pianist and influenced him. He bought his first record (Thick as a Brick by Jethro Tull) at the age of 12, and still today, buys at least one CD or vinyl record daily, either physically or downloading it from Apple Music.
His favourite musical genres are soul, blues, rock 'n' roll, and jazz (Springsteen, Otis Redding, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder, Tom Waits, Van Morrison, David Bowie, Lou Reed, Miles Davis, Oscar Peterson, Snarky Puppy, Talking Heads, and Tim Buckley are some of my favourite artists), and being President of the Foundation.
The Donizetti Theatre has brought him closer in recent years to other genres such as symphonic music and opera.
He plays (terribly, in his opinion) flute, sax and percussion.
With a certain regularity, he has been writing about music for at least 10 years for an online newspaper in the province of Bergamo, Bergamonews, which has a daily readership of over 150,000.
A few years ago, he got involved in organizing the first event in Bergamo with the theme of Springsteen and his art.

Marco Quaroni Pinchetti
Marco Quaroni Pinchetti

A professional journalist since 2002, for five years he was editor of the newspaper Il Giorno di Milano. As of 2007 to date, he is the editor of the Il Giornale di Sondrio newspaper. He collaborated for years with music magazines such as Mucchio Selvaggio and Buscadero (where he published, incidentally, the last interview with Clarence Clemons before he died in 2010). Today he collaborates with the website mentinfuga.com and is director of Classix and Classix Metal. He has also published several books of fiction. Long-term Springsteenian.

Fabio Santini
Fabio Santini

Professional journalist for over 40 years and music expert, Fabio Santini is the author of non-fiction works dedicated to music and communications. A veteran of Italian radio, he has worked in the most prestigious national private radio stations and at RadioRai.
For years, the voice of RTL 102.5 sports and the TV face for the 7Gold network, he was a special correspondent and managing editor of important weekly newspapers and national daily newspapers.
Author and narrator in theatre, he brought several works to the stage including C’era una volta il Cinema dedicated to the person and work of Sergio Leone and collaborated with jazz musicians Gianluigi Trovesi and Gianni Bergamelli.
He teaches History and Aesthetics of Music at the CDpM in Bergamo.

Eleonora Bagarotti
Eleonora Bagarotti

She is a journalist for the newspaper «Libertà». She has published the books: The legacy of the dream (Cortina), Magic Bus, The Who, The songs of Tom Waits, Ligabue, History of rock and Elvis Costello (Editori Riuniti). The Who - Pure & Easy and Tom Waits - The voice and the oblivion (Arcana). Graduated in Harp, she obtained a Master's degree in Educational Projects for the theater at the Boito Conservatory in Parma and is the author of theatrical texts, curator of exhibitions and events.

Biographies

Panel of judges for the Critics’ Award

Claudio Trotta
Claudio Trotta

Claudio Trotta, Milanese, born in 1957, is one of the most esteemed and important independent producers and promoters of live shows in the world.

After various experiences in free radio in the 1970s, he founded Barley Arts in 1979, of which he is still the driving force. Since then, he has organized more than 15,000 events around the world with many artists, including Bruce Springsteen, AC/DC, Kiss, Sting, David Bowie, Metallica, Frank Zappa, Renato Zero, Ligabue, and Negramaro.

Patrizia De Rossi
Patrizia De Rossi

Patrizia De Rossi was born in Rome where she lives and works as a journalist, author and host of radio programs.

She published two books on Luciano Ligabue in 1995 and 2011 and published a third entitled ReStart in 2020. In 2005 she published “Ben Harper. Arriverà una luce”. In 2012 “Gianna Nannini – Fiore di Ninfea” was released. In 2014 she published “Bruce Springsteen e le donne. She’s the one”, about female figures in the Boss's songs.

As an author and radio host she has worked at Rai Stereo Notte, Radio M100, Radio Città Futura, and Enel Radio. Since 2006 she has been editor-in-chief at «Hitmania Magazine», a publication on music, entertainment and youth cultures.

Corrado Gambi
Corrado Gambi

An actor, director, author and theatrical educator since 1990, he is a member and founding partner of Le Tre Corde Cooperative Company, a theatrical company that creates, produces and distributes shows and a theatrical educational body supported by the Emilia-Romagna 13/99 R.L. He was director of the Luna Crescente Theatrical Company, a company established in 1984 in Imola (BO) until June 2019, the month in which the company was disbanded. He works with many collaborators, in what are often ongoing relationships, in his specific projects and various research paths. His activities are overwhelmingly marked by an interest in the theatre as a tool for individual expression. This concept of theatre and art in general not disconnected from “taking responsibility” in social terms, has led Gambi to continually elaborate and plan cultural projects, often aimed at people and areas where expression is hindered or demeaned, or to promote theatrical “speech” and the practice of theatre in the firm conviction of the need for theatre. The sphere of what is known as “social theatre” was the subject of four dissertations at the University of Bologna at the Faculty of Education Studies. He directed public and private theatrical spaces in Emilia-Romagna and Lombardy for a total of twenty-one years. Today Corrado Gambi lives in Vigevano (PV).
...SO FAR, THIS IS HIS OFFICIAL PROFESSIONAL PROFILE...
THEN THERE IS THE “METHOD IN THE MADNESS”, NO LESS OFFICIAL...
Corrado Gambi is a music lover... very keen about music... so keen that he has been travelling the world over for exactly forty years, devoting his time, holidays, energy, money, physical and mental acrobatics, applying the “scientific method” in that sane Shakespearian madness, subjecting friends and family to exhausting rock’n’roll obstacle courses, dealing with marriages, divorces, births, veritable multiple life changes over the decades... chasing his “tram called desire”, his “bus heading to a dream”, his means of transport/training/initiation since he was 11 years old... meaning: Bruce Springsteen!
In addition to his incurable disease for the Boss, which has led Corrado (to date... but the data must soon be updated...) to attend more than 160 of his concerts... Gambi’s passion for music has allowed him to belong to the Combo Jazz Club in Imola (BO) for more than 25 years, planning and managing important jazz festivals and exhibitions in Emilia-Romagna... and to participate in the birth of Slow Music in Milan in 2018, as nothing less than a founding member, a cultural association-project with Claudio Trotta at the helm, which proposes the philosophy of what is fair and ethical, through education and training programs connected to music, to making music, to in-depth listening to music, to managing projects and events in musical and artistic worlds, which share a fair relationship with its users.

Ermanno Labianca
Ermanno Labianca

Journalist, writer, RAI screen writer, record producer, he has written several books dedicated to his great musical passion, Bruce Springsteen. Born in 1961, Roman by birth, very American at his musical heart, but more than just America, of course. Long-time television screen writer (Sanremo Festival 2018 and 2019, three editions of the May First Concert in the mid-2000s, Sanremo Blues, Il mondo a 45 rpm: storia della Italian RCA italiana and much more), contributor to a large number of music magazines since the 1980s. His latest and recently released work in honour of Bruce’s 50-year career has met with great success.

David Drusin
David Drusin

David (Druso) Drusin was born in Cividale del Friuli on December 16, 1973. After a life spent on basketball courts as a professional player and having played in many cities in Italy, after 24 years of basketball career he became a founding member of Druso, one of Italy’s most important live clubs, and as art director coordinating 2315 concerts...

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