The second round campaign to solicit candidate theme songs for the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympic Games was officially launched December 1 and “institutions, individual professionals and amateurs from home and abroad are all welcome to hand in their entries”, said Zhang Ming, deputy director of the culture and ceremonies department for Beijing 2008.
He said, “the campaign aims to carry out the concepts of Green Olympics, High-tech Olympics and People’s Olympics, to promote Olympic-related cultural activities among citizens, and to boost mass participation in the Olympic movement in China”.
Zhang said there are no restrictions on the forms and genres of the submissions, which are supposed to fully display the Olympic spirit of solidarity, respect, fair play, joy and friendship.
Deadline for submissions is April 25, 2005 and all submissions should be recorded on either cassette tape or CD-ROMs, together with a written version of the entry, the author’s history and contacts, and a signed letter of copyright transfer.
A panel composed of professional musicians will select the top ten from the entries and each of the ten winners will receive a cash reward of 10,000 yuan ($1,210).
Meanwhile, Beijing 2008 ended a four-month mascot design contest December 1 for the 2008 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The organizing committee will finalize the official version of the Olympic and Paralympic mascots on the basis of the best entries in this competition, and the mascots will be officially unveiled in June 2005.
Since the design contest began August 5, the competition has received more than 600 entries of mascot designs from around the world.
Zhang said Beijing 2008 has already developed strict criteria and procedures to evaluate and select the Olympic mascots, which should have Chinese characteristics, embody the Olympic spirit and appeal to people from all over the world.
