Finland’s Contest for New Music (UMK) song submission opens – who will continue the UMK success story?

During this decade, UMK has grown into one of the most followed Eurovision national selections and an increasingly significant platform for Finnish music. UMK artists regularly appear on the most popular song and album charts, and many songs featured in the competition have become major hits both domestically and abroad.

Tapio Hakanen, chair of UMK's professional jury comments: "Last season's UMK and Eurovision were a great success both in terms of the songs' achievements and musical diversity. Hopefully Liekinheitin, Takatukka, Lululai and other great UMK songs have inspired Finnish music creators to make distinctive, creative and diverse songs with which they can now apply for the upcoming season."

The 16th Contest for New Music UMK, UMK27, will be held at Tampere's Nokia Arena on February 20, 2027. The selected artists and songs will be announced traditionally in January. The UMK27 winner will represent Finland at the next Eurovision and perform there for hundreds of millions of viewers.

This summer, Mikko Silvennoinen, a long time commentator for UMK and Eurovision, and who has been responsible for youth content at Yle, was selected as UMK's new executive producer.

Silvennoinen, who will take on the role during the fall, is excited about the upcoming UMK season, and comments: "I love that UMK brings together very different Finns and we can all create eternal memories together. For the upcoming season, we're looking for songs that make the artist shine. The song and the performance built for it must leave the audience with the feeling that no one else could have done this anywhere else. That's part of UMK's magic."

Applications to UMK are submitted through a form available at yle.fi/umk. The site also contains the competition rules in Finnish, Swedish and English. The submission period opened today, August 17 at 8:00 AM and closes on August 23 at 11:59 PM. All applicants will be contacted by the end of October at the latest.

Previous UMK winners:

• 2026, Linda Lampenius x Pete Parkkonen – ”Liekinheitin”
• 2025, Erika Vikman – ”Ich komme”
• 2024, Windows95man – ”No Rules!”
• 2023, Käärijä – ”Cha Cha Cha”
• 2022, The Rasmus – ”Jezebel”
• 2021, Blind Channel – ”Dark Side”
• 2020, Aksel Kankaanranta – ”Looking Back”
• 2019, Darude feat. Sebastian Rejman – ”Look Away”
• 2018, Saara Aalto – ”Monsters”
• 2017, Norma John – ”Blackbird”
• 2016, Sandhja – ”Sing It Away”
• 2015, Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät – ”Aina mun pitää”
• 2014, Softengine – ”Something Better”
• 2013, Krista Siegfrids – ”Marry Me”
• 2012, Pernilla Karlsson – ”När jag blundar”

Read press release on Yle's webpage.

Media contact: 
Juhani Lassila, Head of Media
+358 40 541 2365
ext-juhani.lassila@yle.fi