This year’s Project Aloft Star in Asia received over 350 entries and half a million online votes. The joint Starwood Hotels & Resorts’s Aloft brand and MTV contest is in its second year this year. It aims to identify and support emerging music artists throughout Asia Pacific with three competition clusters.
The 15-week competition kicked off on 22 May this year. Entries this year was close to double the number of published original music video submissions from aspiring music talent compared to the inaugural edition last year. Voting number this year skyrocketed over 20 times last year’s.
Each of the three cluster winners was awarded a US$10,000 cash prize and will be featured in MTV Seen that will air on MTV Asia, MTV China and MTV India in October. They will also be featured in individual vignettes on Project Aloft Star Website.
Guisian Yu, Run Pussy Run and Jennifer Lackgren/Jenny & the Scallywags won the China, India and Southeast Asia clusters respectively.
The judging panel comprised the following representatives from Aloft Hotels, MTV, celebrities and music industry experts:
For Southeast Asia,
- Paras Sharma, Vice President, MTV and Comedy Central Brands and Digital Media, Viacom International Media Networks Asia
- Vincent Ong, Senior Brand Director, Asia Pacific Brand Management, Starwood Hotels & Resorts
- Aliff Aziz, a Singapore born singer and actor who won the reality TV singing competition, Anugerah when he was 16 years old, making him the competition’s youngest winner. He is currently working on his fourth album, having just released his current single “Selayaknya Aku”
- Aziana Ali, General Manager – Marketing, Sony Music Entertainment Malaysia
- Valent Soisuvarn, Executive Director, MTV Thailand
For China,
- Charles Chan, Creative Director, Head of Content Production, MTV China
- Master Dong Shan, a pop singer who won multiple newcomer awards when he debuted. His fourth and latest album《四张机》 was released this year.
- Shan Qi, renowned planner-musician-producer-director who is also known as ‘China Fashion Festival Godfather’
- Sofia Wong, Hotel Manager, Aloft Guangzhou University Park
For India,
- Bobin James, Head of Programming and Artist Relations, MTV Indies
- Clinton Cerejo, award-winning composer, producer and singer who has lent his inimitable voice to a number of Bollywood hits
- Hazel Ooi, Manager, Brand Management, Asia-Pacific, Sheraton, Westin, Four Points by Sheraton, Aloft, Element
