This time she's not singing, she's deciding: Jerry Heil will judge Reeperbahn's top prize — and a Ukrainian is nominated

Jerry Heil has joined the jury of the ANCHOR Award, the prize handed out every year at Hamburg's Reeperbahn Festival. Making the call alongside her are Italy's Domiziana, France's Oklou and British producer Sega Bodega.

The festival announced the jury line-up on its own website.

ANCHOR is Reeperbahn's headline award: it goes to one new name from the line-up that the jury considers the most important of the year. The prize was founded in 2016 and marked its tenth anniversary last year. Past winners include the UK band Yard Act, Japan's Ichiko Aoba and America's Mei Semones.

Judged on the performance, not the releases

The mechanics are unusual. The shortlist is drawn up by a separate board of industry figures — this year that means Cahleb Derry from YouTube, Justin Sweeting from Hong Kong's Clockenflap, Laura Minutolo from Universal and Daisy Carter from Britain's DIY.

The winner, though, is chosen by the jury on the spot — on the strength of the sets the nominees play at the festival itself. That makes the four days in Hamburg an audition rather than a ceremony, and Jerry Heil will be there in the room as one of the people deciding.

“The winner is determined by a special jury, on the basis of the performances the nominees give at the festival itself,” the award's description states.

There are six names on the shortlist: British soul-pop singer Nectar Woode, Australia's BIG WETT, French italo-disco project Dov'è Liana, Ukraine's GANNA, London duo Just For Fun and Berlin jazz ensemble Sonic Interventions.

GANNA is worth a line of her own here: the festival describes her as a Ukrainian artist working across genres. Which means that in this year's ANCHOR a Ukrainian name stands on both sides — among those being judged and among those doing the judging.

Why this is more than a line in a bio

For a new artist, an ANCHOR nomination means attention of a different order: past shortlists include Celeste, Parcels, Moonchild Sanelly and Lime Garden — names that went on to travel far beyond Hamburg.

But something else matters more. It is one thing when Ukrainian music is invited to perform, and quite another when a Ukrainian artist is invited to decide which of Europe's newcomers is named the new artist of the year. That is no longer a guest role.

The festival itself has brought together more than a hundred international artists this year and runs from 16 to 19 September. The ANCHOR ceremony is on Friday, the closing day.

Earlier we wrote about how Jerry Heil released Dark Disco — a track that for two months only the crowd at the Palace of Sports had heard.