Bianjie

[journey]

This week, the Denyafan Festival has celebrated its jubilee 110th edition with a wonderful, bright and yet quite humble five-nights show for such a huge number. With 110 years of history, Denyafan is the longest-running and, perhaps, the most important song contest in Bianjie, as its serves as the largest platform for many small and new artists, as well as the place for established and experienced veteran singers to promote, or simply participate in the celebration of the Bianjian music scene. And, Denyafan is not just that, the festival has been a stage for many other various purposes, not just music, such as social and cultural issues. Furthermore, the festival is one of the, if not the most, popular televised show on the nation's public broadcaster, the BHK, roster, drawing the attention of millions of Bianjians, young and old, following the beloved cultural celebration.

110 years of the contest brought to this point, where the 20 artists chosen by the internal BHK committee alongside the artistic director, also chosen by the BHK committee. Up until the first, out of five nights of the festival, the songs are not published nor streamed anywhere, unlike the list of artists, composers and the song titles themselves. According to the BHK creative director, Nugoon Keokanya, once the secrecy rule was implemented by the broadcaster, many more people began tuning in for the first night of the festival, and more actively checking the streaming platforms for the songs to be released by the artists. "You see people be actually invested in the show, not just thinking: 'Oh, I will check it later'. No, they get their TV or the VOD-service on, and they lock in, as my kids say, to hear it live for the first time, and that's the beauty of it", Keokanya said.

Still, the five nights of Denyafan Festival went by in a fast, with millions discovering new rising stars, as well as seeing the established artists grow or reassure their position on the musical scene of the country with the powerful songs, or weird but working duets, trios, bands and all many-many different variteties of music presented in these five days. And all of that supported by the great arrangement of professional musicians of the BHK Radio Orchestra, who have been working on the festival since day one, and been providing the deeper and more live and raw experience for all the audience both at home and in the Lakcahan Theatre. This edition, luckily, was a rare exception, when no on-air problem happened, and all 20 artists, during the whole duration of Denyafan, were able to perform normally with no malfunctions or problems.

And yet, the final fifth night, which determines and triumphator of the Denyafan Festival, according to the average ranking compiled by the representatives of the radio, press and obviously, the nation, through their televoting. Despite some of its flaws, and quite often a big disagreement between the three collective juries, this time it was a determined choice to give the surprisingly wide gap victory to the newcomer of Denyafan, but not a newcomer of the Bianjian music scene, the 37-year-old Yelu Hešeri, with the song Eien, meaning "forever" in Kunikata. Coming first with all the three jury groups, Hešeri thus became the new winner of the 110th festival. "There are many awards, many contests, festivals and trophies you can get in your life, which will be absolutely great, but there is only one as important and worthy, and its one chosen by people and for the people", he said in his victory speech.

[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhOVibLEDhA&vl=en]