Raju Bankapur and Anoop Walia
CHICAGO: Singing auditions can be challenging even for the most seasoned singer and one has to present the best to have a chance to progress to the next level. In this case it was the semi-final round of Chicago Indian Icon (CII) competition.
The CII karaoke competition is already making history for it is the first of its kind in the US and the response from the Indian community has been positively abundant, exploding every imaginable bench mark, and propelling itself to the forefront of music-lovers’ dream of a unified musical platform that is provided in Chicago by the five founding members of Indian Event Management (IEM).
The third and final audition of the CII was held on Sunday July 21 at the Ashyana Banquet Hall. The program commenced with Brij Sharma, the IEM president, updating the audience about the significant progress made by CII in a short time since inception three months ago. He said that TV Asia would broadcast 30-minute episodes of CII Karaoke competition from the beginning to the final crowning of the CII on September 21.
The Chief Guest for the event was Dr Thomas John, world-renowned Harvard trained ophthalmic surgeon and cornea specialist of Indian origin. The contestants started lining up two hours ahead of time and the audition continued until midnight.
Highlights of the day were Priyanka Khanna and Suraj Patnaik getting standing ovation from the audience. Equally favorites in different categories were Rahul Jain, Gautam Khanna and Mona Malhotra. The top duet item was performed by Bharat and Nehali Dhutia and the fun, energetic group item was from the movie ‘Dil Chahta Hai’, performed by Ravi Dudeja, Gautam Khanna, Gaurav Khurana and Sanjeev Arora.
Pratibha Jairath, the Vice President of IEM, said that the semi finals will give an opportunity to the audience to be involved in the decision making process. The ‘audience votes’ and ‘judges votes’ are equal at fifty percent.
Top six performances will be selected from each category to enter the semi finals. The first semi final is scheduled to be held on August 4 at the Waterford Banquets in Elmhurst and the second semi final will be held on August 25 at the Ashyana Banquets in Downers Grove.
Sharan Walia, the Director of Management and Planning, said that the audience voting was tested in the third audition to give people a flavor of “what is coming ahead.”
Raju Bankapur, Director of Execution and Planning, congratulated his team for a spectacular job of complicated execution process.
The Judges included Mani Majumdar, Kalyan Pathak, Hitesh Master and Manjiri Vaihampayan. The singers and audience both enjoyed their valuable feedback.
Asian Media USA
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