MIDWEST FINALISTS

Troi Atkinson – St. Paul, MN
Edie Carey – Chicago, IL
Mark Croft – Columbus, WI
Ellis Delaney – Minneapolis, MN
Heatherlyn – Bloomington, MN
Mike Himebaugh – Chicago, IL
Jeremy Joyce – St. Louis, MO
Jamie Lono – Chicago, IL
Mary Mcadams – Des Moines, IA
Chris Wolf – Mooresville, IN

WEST FINALISTS

Mariana Bell – Los Angeles, CA
Brittney Bouchard – Los Angeles, CA
Bernadette Conant – Seaside, CA
Steven Hur – Camarillo, CA
Aaron Keim – Broomfield, CO
Karisha Longaker – Chico, CA
Bri Anne Michelle – Grass Valley, CA
Tracy Newman – Los Angeles, CA
Dudley Saunders – West Hollywood, CA
Holly Tannen – Mendocino, CA

SOUTHEAST FINALISTS

Charles Alexander – Nashville, TN
Blair Bodine – Nashville, TN
The Hank Bowman Band – Raleigh, NC
Sheri Carr – Atlanta, GA
Wes Casto – Nashville, TN
Rhett Davis – Winter Park, FL
Shane Millwood – Covington, GA
Ben Neumann – Nashville, TN
India Ramey – Birmingham, AL
Christopher Williams – Nashville, TN

SOUTHWEST FINALISTS

Gary Bragg – Denver, CO
Megan Burtt – Denver, CO
Victoria Celestine – San Antonio, TX
Joanna Endsley – Tyler, TX
Debbie Forrest – Houston, TX
Boris McCutcheon – Ojo Sarco, NM
Aryn Michelle – Coppell, TX
Ninadavo – Saint George, UT
Mathias Olson – Denver, CO
Chris Towne – Austin, TX

NORTHEAST FINALISTS

Hannah Bingman – Huntingdon, PA
Clarence Bucaro – Brooklyn, NY
Max Garcia Conover – Portland, ME
Jason Myles Goss – Brooklyn, NY
Joshua Meltzer – Westfield, MA
Dave Murphy – Rutherford, NJ
Jon Paul – Astoria, NY
Sinem Saniye – New York, NY
Gretchen Witt – New York, NY
Brad Yoder – Pittsburgh, PA

INTERNATIONAL FINALISTS

Helen Austin – Royston, BC
Burrows – Petite-Patrie Southwest, QC
Sarah Class – Bristol, UK
Jane Eamon – Kelowna, BC
Sharon Gosler – The Hague, Netherlands
Babette Hayward – Saint John, NB
Cara Luft – Winnipeg, MB
Ria Mae – Halifax, NS
Find the Others – Toronto, ON
Jeffrey Straker – Punnichy, SK

New York, NY – July 20, 2011 – NewSong Music is proud to announce its collaboration with Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the world’s largest performing arts organization, home of the New York City Ballet, Metropolitan Opera, New York Philharmonic, Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Juilliard School.

NewSong Music will present three shows this year at the David Rubenstein Atrium as part of the Atrium’s weekly Target Free Thursdays events.

The events kick off on August 11 with NewSong songwriters “In The Round.” Featured in this concert will be former Mountain Stage NewSong Contest standouts Maureen Andary of the Washington, DC based folk/jazz/pop duo The Sweater Set; Ben Lubeck, frontman of the Minneapolis americana/indie band Farewell Milwaukee; and Boston folk/pop singer-songwriter Rose Polenzani.

The second date, September 22 will feature the 2010 Mountain Stage NewSong Contest grand prize winner Amber Rubarth. As part of her prize, she recorded an album with Grammy winning producer Jacquire King (Norah Jones, Kings Of Leon, Tom Waits). The album is set for release this September on NewSong Recordings. Rubarth will also have a nationally syndicated performance on NPR’s Mountain Stage. Her songs have attracted enthusiastic praise from NPR’s All Songs Considered, The Huffington Post, BBC Radio and Acoustic Guitar Magazine.

The final performance of the series is on December 29 and features NewSong Recordings artist Chris Velan. Motivated by a range of influences spanning 70s singer-songwriters, blues, rock, 80s alternative, West African music and reggae, the Montreal-based singer-songwriter continues his musical journey with his fourth and latest studio album Fables For Fighters, produced by Iestyn Polson (David Gray, David Bowie).

Gar Ragland, director and co-founder of NewSong Music says, “It’s a great honor to work with Lincoln Center to showcase some of the best emerging artists in North America. And it’s wonderful to provide the exceptional talent from our artist community the chance to perform at a venue as celebrated as Lincoln Center.”

Target Free Thursdays provide free public performances every Thursday night at 8:30pm at the new David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center. These evenings make a vast spectrum of the performing arts available to the broadest possible audience.

Curated by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc., Target Free Thursdays performances feature national and international touring artists as well as local artists from around the New York metropolitan area. The series also features artists from Lincoln Center’s resident organizations including The Juilliard School, Jazz at Lincoln Center, and The Chamber Music Society, among others, along with artists curated by community-based partners. Target Free Thursdays represents a diverse cross-section of musical genres, including pop, Latin, rock, soul, country, spoken word, jazz, and world music, as well as classical and new music. Select performances also feature live music for social dancing including swing, salsa, and tango.

Hillary McAndrew Plate, programmer for Target Free Thursdays says, “Working with NewSong Music to curate such a distinctive combination of emerging artists for Target Free Thursdays is a wonderfully exciting venture. This collaboration truly exemplifies our vision of the David Rubenstein Atrium as a gateway to Lincoln Center and the arts not only for audiences, but artists too! With performers like these singer/songwriters, and our valued collaborators we look forward to a future as a hub for creativity on NYC’s Upper West Side””

NewSong Music is an independent music organization. Its mission is to both build a supportive community of performers and songwriters across all genres of music and levels of skill, while identifying truly exceptional artists within this community and introducing their music to a broader, international audience. The standout talent NewSong works with is discovered primarily through the Mountain Stage NewSong Contest, one of North America’s premier showcases of emerging performing songwriters. To learn more about this year’s contest and submit, please visit www.newsong-music.com/contest.

Lincoln Center’s David Rubenstein Atrium: www.lincolncenter.org/atrium
NewSong Music: www.newsong-music.com
Chris Velan: www.chrisvelan.com
Amber Rubarth: www.amberrubarth.com
Maureen Andary: www.thesweaterset.com
Ben Lubeck: www.farewellmilwaukee.com
Rose Polenzani: www.rosepolenzani.com
Mountain Stage: www.mountainstage.org

For press inquiries please contact:

Ben Lubeck

Amber Rubarth

Chris Velan