The results are in! After judges thoughtfully listened to five finalists at St. Albert's Canada 150 Songwriting Contest, pop-rock singer Lia Cole was pronounced the winner.
The results are in! After judges thoughtfully listened to five finalists at St. Albert's Canada 150 Songwriting Contest, pop-rock singer Lia Cole was pronounced the winner.
Standing on the International Children's Festival of the Arts outdoor stage with her long guitar, Cole sang Home to Me. The tune started with a soulful feel before picking up the beat, inviting the crowd to join in the simple, easy-to-repeat lyrics.
After the competition's completion this past Saturday, Cole described the on-stage performance in the following words:
“I thought it was fun. The crowd was interactive and made the song more interesting,” said Cole. “And I'm really excited to do the music video.”
Cole receives a $5,000 professional theme song recording packaged engineered by PlanIt Sound, a $1,000 cash gift from The Survey Company, and the chance to perform her song at St. Albert's Canada 150 events.
Rhonda Egar-Lee, Canada 150 coordinator, noted the judging was difficult with only a one-point difference in some cases.
“One thing that put her over the top was audience participation. Overall the song was spunky and cool and definitely a Canada 150 theme song for St. Albert.”
In addition to Egar-Lee, competition judges were PlanIt Sound record producer R.J. Cui, CTV weatherman Josh Classen, Tupelo Honey drummer Greg Williamson and Mayor Nolan Crouse.
Throughout her music career, Cole performed at many major events such as Seven Music Fest, Big Valley Jamboree, Global Country and Edmonton Pride Festival.
No stranger to winning competitions, Cole was the 2016 Youth Artist recipient for the Mayor's Celebration of the Arts Awards and also won Amplify's emerging artist award for The Show 2.0.
Amplify's prize included a PlanIt Sound recording and marketing package. The St. Albert recording company launched Cole's You Lost Me acoustic video in Oct. 2016.
Runner-up Martin Murphy's song St. Albert Hurrah! raises a glass to early pioneers and the people who built our city through the decades. His jaunty tune is structured around an Acadian-styled rhythm with bilingual lyrics.
When Murphy threw his hat in the ring, he researched St. Albert's history back to the early French and Métis founders.
By way of introduction, Murphy asked the crowd to imagine the pioneer days when families made their own music sitting around an open fire and using a kerosene lamp in a sod hut built with a dirt floor.
“I decided to write a good old-fashioned Acadian voyageur song. And I added three-part harmony to create communication. That's what pioneers did in a community. They sang together.”
Accompanied by back-up vocalist Tiffany Deriveau and guitarist Paul Lamoureux, Murphy's upbeat story song describes St. Albert's beauty in poetic verse buoyed by bouncy music.
Gracious in defeat, Murphy said, “I'm very happy. It came out better than I expected. It was a hoot. I captured the spirit. I captured the theme and I told a story.”
Known to local audiences as the driving force behind the PreTenors, he is also a recording artist and part of Mayfield Dinner Theatre's stable of triple threat performers. A versatile artist, he sings opera, musical theatre, a cappella and contemporary popular music.
In the competition's spirit of togetherness, Bridget Reschke, a confident singer-songwriter with a lush voice, sang More Beautiful, a catchy folk ballad that packed Canada's history in several verses of lyrical imagery.
Nine-year-old Allison Storry received the loudest applause for a solid rendition of Our Canada, a modest nod to our country while Amanda Penner's pop-folk number, Home, came across as a love letter to Canada.
Now is your chance to be a judge. View the five songs at https://stalbert.ca/exp/canada150/stories/songwriting
