EDVARD Prize to Karpe Diem

Magdi Omar Ytreeide Abdelmaguid and Chirag Rashmikant Patel (Karpe Diem) have been awarded TONO's EDVARD Prize 2017 in the Lyrics category for the album "Heisann Montebello".

The two composers and lyricists were presented with the award on Wednesday evening at the Christmas party of their management Little Big Sister, surrounded by their closest collaborators and friends. The award was presented on behalf of the EDVARD jury by TONO's communications manager Willy Martinsen. The award consists of a trophy by Bruno Oldani, a diploma and 50.000 kroner. Karpe Diem was awarded the award in strong competition with the two other nominees in the lyrics category, Frida Ånnevik (for the lyrics on "Her bor") and Ole Paus (for the lyrics on "Ubudne gester").

Magdi and Chirag in Karpe Diem were both surprised and honored to receive the EDVARD Prize in the Text category.

The jury's reasoning:
Hello EDVARD Prize!

Magdi Omar Ytreeide Abdelmaguid and Chirag Rashmikant Patel have had enormous success with the album "Heisann Montebello". They have convinced music critics, they have had enormous amounts of media coverage, and not least they have really reached out to the people. Three sold-out nights in Oslo Spektrum are testament to that.

The foundation of success is the songs – and the lyrics. In Karpe Diem's ​​text universe we find politics, religion, metropolitan dynamics, inequalities, integration and comment fields. They provoke, chastise and irritate, while also possessing an incredible playfulness with words and sentences. They have an enormous flair for phonetics, groove, sound, and everything that must "work" in a popular musical universe. The result is modern, musical poetry, which both has high-value qualities in isolation, and which stands in a legacy from poets like Jan Erik Vold, but which also appeals to 5-year-olds. They sing along to "Nav'er, Nav'er, Nav'er" and "Mullah, Mullah, Mullah", probably without fully understanding the content. To them, this just sounds "cool".

And therein lies much of the power and art behind Karpe Diem's ​​success: Heavy artillery is fired with such great energy that it works for a large audience that does not necessarily have experienced the same thing as the creators, but who still find that it concerns them.

The EDVARD Prize
The EDVARD Prize, named after Edvard Grieg, is a prize that TONO has awarded annually since 1998, and which is awarded to authors and women who have created musical works and lyrics for music of high artistic quality. With the prize, TONO wants to increase attention to Norwegian composers and lyricists, and to increase Norwegians' understanding of and knowledge of newly written Norwegian music. The winner's music or lyrics must have been premiered or published in the previous year. Emphasis is also placed on the author's other production. The 2017 EDVARD jury consisted of composers Arvid Wam Solvang, Hilde Wahl, Therese Birkelund Ulvo, Klaus Sandvik, Rita Engedalen, Gøran Grini, and music publishers Jan Stefan Bengtsson (Cantando) and Stine Lieng (Warner Chappell).

For more information:
Willy Martinsen, Communications Manager at TONO, mobile 909 65 254, email willy.martinsen@tono.no

PHOTO: Little Big Sister/ akam1k3