THE winner of the $10,000 grand prize in the University of Canberra’s inaugural UC-Vision Song Contest is German band KYTES for their song “Inner Cinema”, it was announced on Friday.

KYTES is a touring indie band from Munich made up of four life-long friends: Michael Speiler, vocals and guitar; Timothy Lush, drums; Kerim Öke, guitar and Thommy Sedlacek, bass.

Chief judge Tom Busby from Australian band Busby Marou described KYTES’ entry as a “cleverly crafted pop song that potentially has a huge appeal to a wide audience”.

The grand prize winner was selected from 12 finalists picked out by the shortlist judging panel, which included the director of the Stockholm University College of Music Education, Ian Plaude, record label Studio Sixty-Eight’s producer/engineer, Matt Barnes, and Alaskan singer/songwriter Marian Call.

All songs submitted to the contest were also open to the public for voting through the contest’s website. The winner of the $1,000 People’s Choice Prize was “Something to Hold Onto”, a first-time collaboration between University of Canberra students Sherman Leung and Ivona Kraljevic, who met at high-school, before choosing to study at the University.

230 entries were submitted from Australia, New Zealand and as far as Austria, Russia, Scotland, Germany and Canada, but we are still a little bemused as to the purpose of this “international challenge”.