The winner of the top annual award for television programmes from the regions of Europe, the Grand Prix CIRCOM 2024, is Wind Music (Blaasmuzyk) from Omrop Fryslân in The Netherlands!
The announcement was made on Thursday 23 May at a gala ceremony in Poznan, Poland, hosted by the Polish national broadcaster TVP. The award, also sponsored by TVP, was collected by Murk-Jaep van der Schaaf, from Omrop Fryslân.
The Grand Prix winner's first impressions:
The programme follows inexperienced musicians learning how to play in a brass band. Such bands were once a staple part of rural communities but have been disappearing as young people follow different musical tastes. Now more than 70 New Talent brass orchestras are reviving community interest.
Conductor Guus Pieksma coaxes and humours his novice players to prepare for a concert in the village in just ten weeks.
A farmer learns the flute between caring for his animals. A bus driver learns the horn to ease the pain of her mother’s death. A recently divorced cleaning woman finds comfort in the community effort and says “music makes the world better for everyone: we need more.”
President of the Prix CIRCOM, Mojca Recek, said:
“The Music category has been part of the Prix CIRCOM categories since 2015 (merged into the "Music and Arts" category in 2017). In all these years, the winners of this category have not been among the Grand Prix winners. I am glad that the judges recognised the importance of music and arts in people's lives. I am delighted that the Prix CIRCOM 2024 has once again brought together a large number of high quality programmes from regional studios across Europe.”
The award is a trophy and 2000 euros in cash and the presentation was made by the President of CIRCOM Regional, Eivind Undrum Jacobsen, from NRK Norway.
Wind Music was selected from 180 entries by a jury of TV professionals from all over Europe meeting in Birmingham, England, hosted by the BBC. It was the winner of the category Music and Arts, one of 11 categories viewed and discussed by the judges.
Omrop Fryslân is the multimedia provider for the region of West Friesland and transmits broadcasts in the Friesian language.
