10-yo Kazakh singer succeeds at Junior New Wave 2014

Mukhammedali Zhugunusov, a 10-year-old singer from Kazakhstan, won the third place at the Junior New Wave 2014 singing contest held in Artek international children center in Yalta, Crimea on August 16-18, Tengrinews reports.

Mukhammedali Zhugunusov was the only participant from Kazakhstan. The contest had two stages, and he performed fifth both times. On the first day the contests sang world hits, on the second day they performed cartoon or movie songs.

Mukhammedali's second day performance was so successful that all the jury members gave him 11 point each, that's the contest's maximum. The young singer performed a popular song Aliya of the Kazakh composer Seydolla Baiterekov on the second day. 

There was an unusual innovation on the second day of the contest: besides the usual official jury consisting of music professionals, parents of the young singers were invited to take part in evaluation of the performances. The could not give points to their own children but could evaluate all the rest. Their points were summed up with the points given by the chief juries. 

Mukhammedali Zhugunusov of Kazakhstan shared his third place with Ruslan Aslanov from Belarus and Sofiya Voloshanenko from Ukraine. 

Andrey Boiko from Ukraine won the Grand Prix. The second place was shared by three participants - a duo from Italy Martina and Chiara Scarpari, and two Russian singers Polina Bogusevich and Yekaterina Maneshkina. The People's Choice Award also went to Yekaterina Maneshkina.

To quality for the Junior New Wave 2014 Mukhammedali Zhugunusov from Astana won the Grand-Prix of the children's contest Ayalagan Astana in Kazakhstan.

He has been in music since the age of 6. His mother, who is an actress of Kuanyshbayev Kazakh Drama Theatre, was his first singing teacher. His father is a producer.

Mukhammedali is not the only success of his mother. His elder brother Rustem Zhugunusov, 18, is already a well known singer in Kazakhstan. He was among the finalists of Kazakhstan's X-Factor show.

The Junior New Wave 2014 contest brought together 17 contestants from 11 countries: Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Israel, Romania, Kazakhstan, Italy, Moldova, Belarus, Latvia and Georgia. The jury, chaired by Russian composer Igor Krutoi, consisted of famous Italian operatic tenor Alessandro Safina, and Russian popular singers Philip Kirkorov, Nyusha and Lev Leshchenko.

Reporting by Aizhan Tugelbayeva, writing by Assel Satubaldina, editing by Tatyana Kuzmina