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Italy’s Meduza, Dutch singer Naaz Among Winners at Music Moves Europe Talent Awards

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Italian electronic producers Meduza, Norway’s Girl In Red, and Dutch singer Naaz (pictured) were among the winners at the second annual Music Moves Europe Talent Awards, which took place Friday, Jan. 17 in the Netherlands. The honor, formerly known as the European Border Breakers Award (EBBA), went to eight artists in total, as well as a MME audience/public choice award winner. The victors were chosen by jury members such as Wilbert Mutsaers (currently Head of Content, Spotify Benelux) and Julia Gudzent (a festival programmer for Germany’s Melt Festival and Lollapalooza Berlin) and took place at a ceremony in Groningen at the annual Eurosonic Noorderslag conference.

“It’s our first ever award,” Meduza’s Mattia Vitale told Variety after the trio’s win. Meduza scored a massive pan European hit last year via their vibe-laden house track “Piece Of Your Heart,” which went Top 10 last year at radio in multiple countries across the Atlantic, including in Germany and the UK. “Honestly, we knew it was a good track,” he said, “but we didn’t expect something big like that. … It became hot quickly and we’re more than happy about that.” The song is also nominated for a Grammy Award this year in the Best Dance Recording category.

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Each winner will receive a prize worth €10,000 (funded in part from a Creative Europe Program of the European Union grant), and the winner of the Public Choice Award 2020 is set to receive a prize of €5,000.

This is the second edition of the EU award for popular and contemporary music, which aims to put a spotlight on upcoming young European music talents and to support their international careers. Music Moves Europe also launched a chart last year, with ranking based on streaming data and EU radio airplay, outside the artists’ home countries but within Europe. Airplay information is based on 61 public EBU stations from 41 European countries, measured by Radiomonitor.

In 2019, winners such as Bishop Briggs and Belgium’s Blackwave took home awards at the Inaugural edition of the awards show.

Other winners at Friday’s event included Sweden’s Anna Leone, Portugal’s PONGO, Hungary’s HARMED, Austria’s 5K HD, and London rapper Flohio. Aside from being one of the eight artists chosen by the jury this year, 21-year old Dutch singer N​aaz scored a second win Friday as she also picked up the Public Choice award for 2020.

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