KUALA LUMPUR: Confined to the four walls of her room, 17-year-old Belle Sisoski, isolated and lonely during the Covid-19 pandemic period, composed a sombre song entitled 'Stop Your Games'.
Now, 'Stop Your Games', an emotionally complex song centreing on child neglect, has been listed as one of the top seven grand finalists in the Commonwealth Song Contest 2022/2023.
The Commonwealth Song Contest is a major international music event for the 2.5 billion people of the 56 Commonwealth Nations.
"That pandemic lockdown during the 2020 to 2022 period has caused tremendous challenges to the mental health of many, experienced by both adults and children.
"This is a song about complex emotions triggered by lockdown, isolation, adapting to a new way of life, dealing with the loss of normal, flashback to fragile early emotional state of childhood, an expression from the lens of a child.
"I was also inspired to capture the raw, dark and complex emotions of the pandemic effects while journeying through that unusual time," the Sarawakian told the New Straits Times.
Belle, who has over 1 million streams on Spotify covering multiple genres of songs throwing in a touch of fusion from traditional instruments, has arranged, composed, written and even edited the music video of 'Stop Your Games' all by herself.
That was Belle's way of coping with lockdown stress.
"My hope is that should I win this Commonwealth Song Contest, it will allow me to use my music through my artistry, combine it with my own together with national and global social media platforms to promote and help preserve traditional Malaysian and worldwide ethnic instruments, while showcasing their beauty, their stories, versatility and adaptability to modern genre-bending music in the fusion of Classical, Pop and EDM in line with my unique brand of music to a bigger global stage," she said.
In 2021, Belle joined many online singing cover songs contests and original song competitions, including the UK Song Contest and UnsignedOnly being the two major international song contests, on top of the many local and national contests.
The Commonwealth Song contest is a result of her song entry to the UK Song contest, which led her to qualify and be selected to represent Malaysia because Malaysia is part of the 56 Commonwealth Nations.
Finalists and winners are chosen via an international public voting system.
To vote for Belle, click here.