Irish rockers Walking On Cars were among the 10 winners of the 2017 European Border Breakers Awards (the ‘EBBA'), the European music awards for emerging artists, who were honoured last night at the Eurosonic Noorderslag festival in the Dutch city of Groningen.
As ever, Jools Holland performed MC duties at the ceremony, which was held in front of a live audience at the Martiniplaza.
The EBBA, now in their 14th year, are an EU Prize, organised by Eurosonic Noorderslag in partnership with the European Commission (Creative Europe) and the European Broadcasting Union, with support from Buma Cultuur, the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, Province of Groningen, the City of Groningen and Music Week. Previous Irish winners include Damien Rice, Hozier and The Script.
London-based singer Dua Lipa came out as the big winner of the evening, taking away the ‘Public Choice Award’ by an overwhelming amount of online voters.
Although Kosovar singer Era Istrefi was unable to attend due to a skiing accident, the EBBA show featured outstanding performances by all the other 2017 winners: Alan Walker (no), Jaakko Eino Kalevi (fi), Namika (de), Hinds (es), Filous (at), Jain (fr), Dua Lipa (gb), Natalie La Rose (nl) and Walking on Cars (ie).
Era Istrefi's accident aside, it's a mark of just how important the EBBAs have become that this was the very first year that all of the winning artists attended the ceremony.
In the upcoming year the EBBA TV show will be broadcasted by several European public channels. Parts of the show can be watched through the EBBA's Youtube channel.
The EBBA are funded under the European Union's (EU) Creative Europe programme. With the EBBA, the European Union wishes to highlight the success of 10 emerging European artists in selling albums and touring outside their home territory.
Every year, 10 European artists receive an EBBA to recognise their success in countries other than their own. This success is measured by airplay, sales, live performances in Europe, and their position in the European Border Breakers Charts. The European Border Breakers Charts, launched earlier this year and compiled by Radiomonitor, rank tracks from around Europe based on airplay abroad.
EBBA celebrate new and border-breaking artists who create today and tomorrow's music. From Adele (United Kingdom) to Christine & the Queens (France), the EBBA winners represent some of the standout European sounds of recent years. Other previous winners include Irish acts SOAK and The Script, Stromae, Gabriel Rios, Hozier, Of Monsters and Men, Mumford & Sons, Aurora, Disclosure, John Newman, C2C, Tokio Hotel, Years and Years, Robin Schulz, Carnival Youth, MØ and Selah Sue.