focus on pure music

New Delhi, Apr 15 (UNI) The Music talent hunt reality show bandwagon rolls on.

Close on the heels of Sony announcing the third season of its popular reality show 'Indian Idol', Star Plus has decided to hop on to the Music talent hunt bandwagon with the launch of 'Star Voice of India', a show aiming to focus on ''pure music rather than the performance or glamour aspect as characterising many shows''.

''Our criterion of judging the contestants will be 100 per cent music and not the performance aspect,''famous playback singer Abhijeet, who is one of the judges on the show, said at a press conference in the Capital to launch the show.

Conceptualised by TV's man of music, Gajendrra Siingh, creator of some of the biggest music based shows on television, 'Star Voice of India', to be hosted by prolific playback singer and inimitable host of many music reality shows, seeks to bring to the aucdience pure music at a time where most of the songs are ''more noice and less voice'.

''Our effort will be to give to the world another Rafi, Mukesh or Kishore,''Music director Lalit Pandit, who, along with his brother Jatin Pandit, singer Abhijeet and Alka Yagnik and Music Director Aadesh Srivastava, will choose the 'Voice of India' from among 30 finalists, which will be selected by the judges after countrywide auditions beginning April 29.

The 30 finalists will then be whittled down to ten based on the votes by the judges on the show. The final winner from among these ten will be selected based on the votes by judges and viewers SMSes which will both carry equal weightage.

Gajendrra Singh, who is producing and directing show, the says that what makes 'Voice of India' different from the other music reality shows is its unique and innovative format.

''All the talent hunt shows that I have produced since 1993 have had something new about them. The same applies to the 'Star Voice of India' which too will have a unique format. For example, unlike many similar shows on other channels where viewers SMSes decide the outcome of the contestants from the very beginning, viewers SMSes will decide the fate of contestants only in the final stage where one winner has to be chosen from amog ten talented singers chosen by the judges.

Even then, an equal weightage in the final rankings will be given to the judges votes. This has been done to lend transparency to the selection process,''Gajendrra said.

Added Abhijeet,''right from the auditioning at the various parts of the country to selection of 30 finalists to choosing the final ten, our endeavour as judges will be to ensure that we choose the ten best singers of the country. It is only after that the viewers SMSes come into play to decide as to who is the best among these ten.'' More UNI