The World Quest Music Songwriting Contest is a new Canadian songwriting contest being launched Wednesday, March 26 for the general public.

Professional entries began March 17. Everyone is eligible and any genre of music is welcome.

Two talented individuals, musical director/composer Troy Bynoe and Sammi Shi, digital video editor/graphic designer/3D animator/website designer, have led a team to build The World Quest Music Songwriting Contest based on the theme “everyone has a song”. There are cash and product prizes to be won, and the contest is free of charge to the general public, and $10 for professional entries.

The contest itself is open to professional and non-professional songwriters who submit entries at www.worldquestmusic.com. Professional and non-professional entries are paired off into two independently running contests. There are no musical categories in this competition, which makes the contest unique. There is a public voting area and a unique wild card vote by select judges.

Judges represent all genres and feature award-winning industry professionals including veteran music publisher Tony Tobias, Gemini-nominated Jennifer Podemski, Idol musician Wilson Laurencin and Doug Bedard of AVR Toronto’s “The Plex Show”.

The contest runs for five months and entrants can enter up to five songs in the non-professional grouping and up to 10 songs in the professional grouping.

Both groupings run together, the professional March 17 through July 26, and the non-professional March 26 through Aug. 8. Contestants go head-to-head online where fans vote for their favourite entries. Semifinalists, finalists and grand prize winners are chosen based on these tallied online votes.