• AC Sapphire — (Portland, Ore.) Her cosmic sound blends disparate elements into an ethereal folk rock while her strong voice shakes listeners awake as she spins her passionate, dust-blasted tales.
• Ash & Eric — (Worcester, Mass.) Ash & Eric are two dreamers forever committed to making music for their listeners that is honest, intentional, and beautiful. The pair continues to say “YES” to the power of vulnerability, simplicity, and new starts.
• Brittany Ann Tranbaugh — (Philadelphia, Penn.) In ‘Quarter Life Crisis Haircut.’ she tackles a wide range of topics including her sixth grade queer awakening, an awkward run-in with an old acquaintance, and the impossibility of true folk music authenticity in this day and age.
• Indus Adams — (San Antonio, Tex.) An entrepreneur by day, Indus turned two years of Covid quarantine into an intensive woodshedding period where he worked on music and songwriting. Music is his great love and the chance to pursue it is a once in a lifetime opportunity, he says.
• Cozi anda Flounder — (Dallas, Tex.) This Cosmic Country duo centers on a father (Ezra) and daughter (Cosi) songwriting team. “It’s like a conversation between generations, put to music,” says Ezra.
• Mikalyn — (Guelph, Ontario) Mikalyn’s signature alt-pop stylings boldly blur lines between genres and eras. As an established singer-songwriter her journey had a significant boost when a Brazilian record label discovered her original, piano-driven songs on Soundcloud and offered to transform them into EDM hits
• Justin Cross — (Birmingham, Ala.) Writing songs has always been a means of expression for Cross, but becoming a father brought a new dimension to his lyrical, musical and creative direction. “A lot of the songs have become expressions of what I want to say to my sons and leave behind for them,” he says.
They will be joined by our Earl-Bird Finalist, The Singer and The Songwriter, a California-based duo who met and began writing and performing music together in 2006. Together, Rachel Garcia and Thu Tran — a queer mixed-race-Mexican-American and first-generation-Vietnamese-American, respectively — won the West Coast Songwriters International Song Contest, were nominated for Best Adult Contemporary Song at the 16th Annual Independent Music Awards and, this year, were named as a finalist in the prestigious Grassy Hill New Folk Song Competition for Emerging Folk Artists at the Kerrville Folk Festival.
Entries to the 21st annual NewSong Music Performance and Songwriting Competition closed at 11:59 PM on Sunday, Sept 18. We are overwhelmed by the talent of the singer-songwriters who entered their original work to this year’s competition.
This year’s eight finalists will convene in Asheville, N.C. on Saturday, Dec. 3 to network, celebrate, showcase and compete in this very special 21st annual live event, hosted by our presenting sponsor, Citizen Vinyl.
Tickets will be available soon.
