NewSong is pleased to introduce 2018 NewSong judge Diana Ezerins, Director of Public Programs at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. in the Performing Arts for Everyone / Community Programming department. 

Ezerins oversees the curation of several festivals and Millennium Stage, a daily, free performance series with live web streams and an online archive. The programs by her team are designed to reflect society through presenting outstanding, culturally diverse artists, and to be as accessible to as many people as possible, without financial or geographical barriers. These projects and performances are developed in partnership with regional, national, and international artists, activists, educators, youth, and more as they strive to democratize curation, creating a space for all to highlight important voices in various communities as well as telling the stories of our collective humanity.

Ezerins is a newcomer to the NewSong judges panel, and is looking forward to learning more about the contestants. When asked what she looks for in a meaningful, well-written song, she says she pays close attention to “lyrics that reflect and empathize with the human experience and sing along-ability.” 

An avid music lover and listener, Ezerins’s most-played albums of 2018 include Neko Case’s Hell-On; Father John Misty’s God’s Favorite Customer; Kacey Musgraves’s Golden Hour; US Girls’ In a Poem; Young Fathers’ Cocoa Sugar; Lucy Dacus’s Historian; The Midnight Hour; Alfredo Rodríguez’s The Little Dream; and The Shins’ The Worm’s Heart. 

To purchase tickets for the Dec. 15 event at Isis Music Hall, visit our ticketing page. 

We’ve created Spotify and YouTube playlists featuring this year’s lineup of NewSong finalists, and these artists are well worth a listen. Follow the playlist on Spotify here, and watch our YouTube playlist here.