International Popular Music Festival

The festival was organized by the Yamaha Music Foundation and its president Genichi Kawakami. Every year the festival was attended by several hundred groups and performers from many countries, usually 20-40. Since the number of participants from one country was not limited, their total number reached 2000 (in the first 1970 festival there were 584 participants, in 1986 - 2072 participants). During the year, the professional jury reviewed all submitted applications, evaluated the musical products offered by the applicants and selected 40–45 of the best products that fall into the main part of the competition: two semifinals with 20–25 participants and the Final, with 10–12 participants each from each semi-final. The main awards of the festival were: Gran Prix (main prize, $ 10,000), Gran Prix National (main national prize for Japanese performers, started issuing since 1975), Most Outstanding Performance Award (Awards for the most outstanding performance, $ 5,000), Outstanding Performance Award (Best Performance, $ 2,000), Outstanding Song Award (Best Song, $ 1,500) and Kawakami Award (Kawakami Award, $ 2,000, usually given to Japanese participants). The winners also received gold, silver and bronze medals for the first three places, memorial plaques of honor, gifts in the form of Yamaha products from audio equipment to motorcycles, and from 1973 and the opportunity to release their songs in the participating countries. After the end of the competition, a giant disk was also produced, containing a collection of all the songs that made it to the Final.

Such countries as the USA, Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, Japan, Mexico and Indonesia were practically constant participants of the competition, many performers were also from various Asian countries. In total, over the years of the competition, representatives of 115 countries participated in it. Participants from the USA and the UK actually dominated the competition, for example, the UK won the festival 5 times (including three times in a row: 1977, 1978 and 1979), and the USA 4 times. The representatives of Japan won twice (until a separate prize was established for them in 1975) and Italy. After 1977, the number of participants decreased due to the appearance of several alternative Asian festivals, but after 1980 it increased again. In 1988, due to the severe illness of the Japanese emperor Hirohito, the contest was not completed, despite the fact that the participants of the last Final were already known. As a result, the festival was discontinued, and in 1989, within the framework of the festival, a charity gala concert was held for UNICEF , in which participants from previous years took part. In total, over the years of the competition, about 500,000 songs were performed on it, 650 of them in the semi-finals and finals.

From the famous European stars in the Yamaha festival took part: the Swedish group “ ABBA ” (then under the name “Benny, Bjorn, Agnetha & Anni-Frid”) in 1972 reached the Semifinal of the contest with the song “Santa Rosa”, the Greek performer Demis Roussos in 1973, took the 6th place with the song “Happy To Sing A Song”, Soviet singer Lyudmila Barykina in 1976 went to the semifinals with the song “Autumn Garden”, but due to political events she was not allowed to travel to Japan , the disco duet “ Baccara ” in 1977 took 14th place with the song “Mad In Madrid”, the British singer Tina Charles in 1978 neighing victory at the festival with the song "Love Rocks". In 1979, another British singer Bonnie Tyler took the 1st place with the song " Sitting on the Edge of the Ocean ", the West German singer Gilla with the song Take The Best Of Me and the Hungarian disco star Szcs Judit also visited the Semifinals. the song “A Tender Loving Touch”, and the Dutch duet “ Maywood ” with the song “Let Me Know” could not reach the semi-finals. In 1980, Italian singer Toto Cutugno took 6th place with “Francesca Non Sa” at the competition, and Italian duo Al Bano & Romina Power - 10th place with the song “Amarci É”. In 1982, Canadian performer Celine Dion won the 3rd place for the song “Telement J'ai D'amour Pour Toi” at the festival. In 1983, the Hungarian pop group “ Neoton Família ” won the 1st place with the song “Time Goes By”, and the Czechoslovak duet “Kamelie” reached the semi-finals with the song “Ciao, Pepino” and received an additional Conductor's Prize (prize for better arrangement and presentation of the song).