We are very excited to have this year’s People’s Choice winner, Victoria Vox as a 2013 NewSong Contest Finalist! Victoria received the most votes of the 60 Regional Finalists to move on to the live performance finals at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in NYC on October 19th.  

Thank you 🙂  I think I have the best fans ever. I actually prefer to call them “supporters.” Having them turn out in the polls to vote for me only reinforced that.  I am so grateful for their constant support. They are the movers and shakers that get behind me or my projects.  Together we make things happen 🙂  

I watched the videos of regional finalists in my region.  It’s a tough way to really “hear” an artist.  Some videos were really well produced and others rather basic (I mean, I did my video with my iPhone!).  I’m looking forward to hearing everybody in person, but even more, meeting them.  It’s hard to get a feel for a performing artist from one video, or one song. 

The switch to the ukulele happened pretty naturally.  I began playing the ukulele in 2003, and stopped writing on the guitar altogether in 2007.  By 2009 I performed solely on ukulele and feel that my songwriting improved significantly. I could be my eclectic self and use ukulele (with it’s limitations) to be more versatile and diverse. Some people may think that “ukulele music” is a genre.  I do my best to break down that misconception.  

I’ve never been to Lincoln Center before. I value every chance I have to perform. Not only will this be a great opportunity to perform in an amazing performing arts center (with the other finalists), it will be a really exciting way to see the venue, from the stage. 

Lincoln Center to host 12th Annual Mountain Stage NewSong Contest on Saturday, October 19.

NEWSONG MUSIC AND LINCOLN CENTER TO HOST 12th ANNUAL MOUNTAIN STAGE NEWSONG CONTEST PARTNERSHIP BRINGS LIVE PERFORMANCE EMERGING ARTIST CONTEST TO LINCOLN CENTER CAMPUS IN 2 PERFORMANCES FREE TO THE PUBLIC New York, NY. October 15, 2013. NewSong Music and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts are hosting the live performance competition finals of the 12th Annual Mountain Stage NewSong Contest. The event will be held on Saturday, October 19 in Lincoln Center’s David Rubenstein Atrium, and feature a 2 PM matinee semi-final round followed by a 7:00 PM evening Award Round. Both shows will be free to the public. “It is truly exciting to collaborate with NewSong as host venue for the Mountain Stage NewSong Contest finals and to further our mutual goals of offering meaningful visibility to such talented emerging artists,” said Lincoln Center’s Hillary McAndrew Plate, Senior Manager of Meet the Artist and Community Programs. “It’s such an honor to be working with Lincoln Center again in this capacity, and a privilege to be able to offer this opportunity to this year’s twelve NewSong Contest finalists,” said NewSong director and co-founder Gar Ragland. “And to be able to invite our grand prize winner back to the Lincoln Center campus next year to perform his or her own show demonstrates Lincoln Center’s and NewSong’s shared commitment to introducing talented emerging artists to a broader audience.”     In addition to a return to perform at Lincoln Center, this year’s grand prize winner will also receive the following: An EP Recorded and Mixed by Producer, Musician and Songwriter Charlie Sexton at Asheville, NC’s Echo Mountain Studios An appearance on National Public Radio’s highly acclaimed Mountain Stage show  A showcase slot at the Sundance ASCAP Music Café in Park City, UT A Sonus Musician’s Chair, custom fitted to the winner’s specs by Brian Boggs Chairmakers A Little Phatty analog synthesizer from Moog Music   Here are this year’s finalists, who were selected from nearly 2,000 song entries. INTERNATIONAL NORTHEAST SOUTHEAST Breagh Mackinnon Sydney, Nova Scotia (CAN) Hannah & Maggie New York, NY Josh Threlkeld Collierville, TN MIDWEST SOUTHWEST WEST Count This Penny Madison, WI Boris McCutcheon Albuquerque, NM Adam Brock Portland, OR EARLY BIRD FINALIST EARLY BIRD FINALIST PEOPLE’S CHOICE Cardinal Sons New Orleans, LA Justina Shandler Coral Gables, FL Victoria Vox Baltimore, MD GENERAL ROUND GENERAL ROUND GENERAL ROUND Eliot Bronson Atlanta, GA Yellow Marbles Venice, CA Lindenbrook Fairfax, VA   CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FREE AUDIO COMPILATION OF THIS YEAR’S NEWSONG CONTEST FINALISTS! The David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center, a community, visitors and ticketing facility, is home to an array of programs, services and amenities designed for area residents, out-of-towners and visitors to Lincoln Center.  Serving as a gateway to Lincoln Center and the entire Upper West Side community, this public space offers—for the first time in Lincoln Center history—day-of discount tickets to available performances across the campus in addition to access to full-price tickets via onsite kiosks and telephone services.  Along with free performances, including Target® Free Thursdays every Thursday night of the year, and Meet the Artist Saturdays—free, family-friendly participatory programs at 11 a.m. on the first Saturday of every month—other attractions and amenities in the Atrium include:  a ‘wichcraft café, a departure point for expanded Lincoln Center tours, a staffed Information Desk, free Wi-Fi, and restrooms. For more information visit: LincolnCenter.org/Atrium   Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc. (LCPA) serves three primary roles: presenter of artistic programming, national leader in arts and education and community relations, and manager of the Lincoln Center campus. A presenter of more than 5,000 free and ticketed events, performances, tours, and educational activities annually, LCPA’s series include American Songbook, Great Performers, Lincoln Center Festival, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Midsummer Night Swing, the Mostly Mozart Festival, White Light Festival, and the Emmy Award-winning Live From Lincoln Center. As manager of the Lincoln Center campus, LCPA provides support and services for the Lincoln Center complex and the 11 resident organizations. In addition, LCPA is leading a series of major capital projects, now nearly complete, on behalf of the resident organizations across the campus. AboutLincolnCenter.org NewSong Music is an independent music and artist development organization founded in 2001 and now based in Asheville, NC. Its mission is to identify exceptional singer-songwriters, and then to work closely with them to introduce their music to a broader, international audience. Prior to relocating to downtown Asheville’s Echo Mountain Recording, NewSong called home in Brooklyn, New York’s creative Gowanus hamlet. NewSong’s programs include a record label (NewSong Recordings), artist management, and presenting and curating concerts and concert series. Its presenting partners include Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (New York), Brookfield Properties (New York, Los Angeles, Toronto), the Milton Rhodes Center for the Arts (Winston-Salem) and Isis Music Hall in Asheville. newsong-music.com

At NewSong, we love getting to know the artists we work with.  For that reason, we are thrilled to have been able to sit down with 2013 NewSong Contest Finalists, Josh Threlkeld.  Josh with be joining the rest of the 2013 finalists in the live performance finals at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in NYC on October 19th.  You can our full interview with Josh below – Hope you enjoy! 

 For more on Josh, visit his website joshthrelkeld.com

We are excited to have Count This Penny – a Madison, WI based singer-songwriter duo – as a 2013 NewSong Contest Finalist.  We caught up with them recently with a brief Q&A and get to know a little more about them.  Catch the full interview below and don’t miss their performance, along with the other 2013 Finalists, at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on October 19th.  

1. The relocation of Count This Penny to Madison, WI early in your musical career seems to have been an important moment. Was that decision completely music related? What is like to live and perform in a town with such a great local music scene?

We love living in Madison! We had the chance to try living somewhere different than our native state of Tennessee for a while, and we decided to go for it. And it became home to us terrifically quickly. We had no way of knowing what an awesome music community was here before we arrived. And it’s only gotten stronger in the time we’ve lived here.

There are great venues and promoters who embrace local music as well as bringing strong national and regional acts through town consistently. There are dozens of awesome local bands who collaborate constantly. You can find a good show every single night–and sometimes three or four in one night. Two weekends ago Shovels and Rope, Volcano Choir/Field Report, and The Vaccines were all playing in Madison the same night. It’s an embarrassment of riches for a city this size, thanks to some hardworking folks.

2. How would you describe your experience as a NewSong Contest Regional Finalist? What similarities and connections, if any, did you find between your music and the music of other artists in your region? To other finalists who will join you at the finals in New York in October?

Well…we’re all songwriters. Ha ha, just kidding. But not really — it’s easy to feel an immediate connection with anyone who cares about the craft of songwriting and who dedicates any amount of his or her time to building (or carving or whittling or engineering or reverse-engineering) a song. We’re thrilled by the opportunity to meet all these great writers and hear their perspectives on songwriting. We really hope we have time to have some conversations like that in New York, because we still have a lot to learn.

3. Smart Studios, where you recorded your first EP, has an incredibly rich history comprised of recordings by Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Fall Out Boy, Jimmy Eat World, etc. What are some of your favorite parts of this history? What does it mean to Count This Penny to have recorded there before the studio closed for good?

Honestly, if we had thought much about the storied past of Smart, we probably wouldn’t have wound up there–we’d have been too intimidated, or felt like we weren’t rock-n-roll enough. But the moment we walked in, and especially when we talked to our engineer, Mike Zirkel, we felt at home. He’s just the warmest, most supportive guy, and we loved him right away. Having said that, we also felt really cool sitting around the A-range while it was still there. Pretty badass. But you could be tons of places with an amazing history and still feel cold or out of place. We had great musicians join us on our record and a great engineer, and we were kind of pinching ourselves when we stopped to think about the music that was recorded and produced there long before we ever started playing.

4. Lincoln Center is widely renowned as one of the world’s greatest venues for the performing arts. With the NewSong Contest live performance finals taking place on Oct 19th, what does the opportunity to perform at Lincoln Center mean to you?

Oh man, you’re just trying to make us nervous now!

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To learn more about Count This Penny, please visit their website: countthispenny.com.

NewSong Music, Isis Restaurant and Music Hall, Kim Ruehl, The Asheville Scene, and WNCW are proud to announce the lineup for its autumn 2013 NewSong Troubadour Series, featuring some of the finest singer-songwriters on the circuit. From NC native Sarah Siskind to Nashville favorite Robby Hecht and Woody Guthrie’s granddaughter Sarah Lee Guthrie, the NewSong Troubadour Series at Isis aims introduce Asheville audiences to exceptional artists in an intimate, listening room atmosphere.

About Scott Miller & Rayna Gellert: 

It may seem an unlikely pairing – Scott Miller, the no nonsense roots rock and roll songwriter – and Rayna Gellert, a maven of old time fiddle music. They met at Mountain Stage in West Virginia last year and were instant friends and collaborators. Since then, Rayna has been accompanying Scott on some solo gigs, adding nuanced readings of Miller’s existing catalog of original songs and gracing some new songs that had been bubbling up for Miller’s next record. Some of the new songs were not a good fit for his new project but were rapidly becoming requested at the duo’s shows. And so, seemingly overnight, the idea of doing an EP of these new fan favorites was born. The CoDependents is now available to fans of both Miller and Gellert.

GENERAL INFO:

Thursday, October 17
$10 Advance / $12 Door 
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS

General Admission ::  Seated / Standing Show
Doors 5pm :: Show 8pm 

There are limited tables available with dinner reservations (You must call Isis at 828-575-2737 for dinner reservations ). There is also some theater-style & balcony seating and standing available on a first come first serve basis. Isis, The Scene, WNCW, and NewSong are proud to have Scott and Rayna as part of the Troubadour Series.

For more information please visit: 
http://www.thescottmiller.com/

Congratulations to this year’s NewSong Contest People’s Choice Winner, Victoria Vox!

Victoria was selected from 60 Regional Finalists by popular vote on the NewSong online voting platform.  She will now move on to compete in the 2013 Mountain Stage NewSong Contest live performance finals on Saturday, Oct 19th at New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and have the chance to win a suite of career advancing prizes.  For a full list of this year’s prizes, click here. 

Additionally, we would like to recognize those regional finalists who received the most votes in their own region: 

International Round – Nancy Beaudette Music
Midwest Round – Rachael Kilgour
Northeast – Victoria Vox (overall winner)
Southeast – Nick Flora
Southwest – Otter Creek
West – Tiff Jimber

Once again, congratulations to ALL of the talented regional round finalists from this year’s contest, and thanks to all of you who voted to support and recognize them.

To be perfectly honest, I really just submit songs to any contest that seems legit. I have had the honor of placing in some songwriting contests (Indie International Songwriting Contest, UK Songwriting Contest, Song Door International, etc), but NewSong has been the first competition to offer me exactly what I’m looking for in a contest. 

I am a writer first and foremost- so there are a number of things about this contest that I find incredibly appealing. First, the finalists who perform at Lincoln center are judged solely on their writing and performing abilities. We are allowed to have one accompanist, but performing solo is preferred. When I heard this, I flipped out! So many contests say they are just judging you on the song, but production quality and arrangement always plays a major factor. With NewSong, I know that my little song baby does not need fancy lights, production, or arrangements in order to wow the judges. It seems like a very fair, loving, contest. 

I just really write most of my songs on piano. The only time I opt for guitar is when I feel like the song needs the rhythm to drive. I can’t mimic the sound of a strumming guitar on the piano. Otherwise, I have a lot more freedom on the piano since it’s my primary instrument. I feel like that is not a very interesting answer…

4. An integral part of this competition and to songwriting in general are lyrics….how important are lyrics to you? do you have an all time favorite lyric or lyricist? 

Lyrics are number one for me. It is one thing to hear a song and tap your foot and dig the groove, but it is a completely different thing to hear lyrics you connect with. It is about depth for me. I want people to enjoy the sound of my music, but it is more important for them to hear and understand the words. I have been working a lot on the clarity of my lyrics when I perform. I make a concerted effort to emphasize the important words and really tell the story. Sometimes, when I practice, I read my lyrics aloud. That way, when I sing them, I communicate the words more conversationally. I try to think of my songs as a form of communication, as well as entertainment.

I admire a lot of lyricists, namely Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan. Listening to songs with amazing lyrics always inspires me. However, I don’t ever feel like I am copying a particular lyric writing style. I love poetic lyrics full of imagery, but my own style tends to be more conversational. 

5. Do you have any advice/comments for aspiring songwriters?

Be honest, know at least five chords, and avoid clichés at any cost. Invent your own cliché. Invent your own word, or concept. It may not be a radio hit, but people will remember a song written about an alcoholic that gets eaten by stray dogs over a song that says hold me tight all night, baby. Combine honesty and accessibility; find a balance of personal details and universal issues. Say something that people care about. 

The only thing in life that is entirely bad is writers block. Everything else can have a good song written about it. I came up with this idea (although I’m sure I’m not the first person to think of this) while getting through a breakup. I was heartbroken and wrote a great song. At that moment I realized that even if I was at a funeral, I could write a great song about that. If I got attacked by a bear (and lived), I could write a hit song about it. But the worst possible thing for a songwriter is definitely writers’ block. If you are able to write about everything you see and feel, it should be much easier to pull yourself out of a bad place. Songwriting can keep your confidence up, and sometimes keep you afloat!