Highlight: 35th Anniversary

April 25th, 2009

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Singer/Songwriter Showcase

Winners

Anthony D’Amato
A 21 year old singer-songwriter from New Jersey, Anthony D’Amato has performed shows all over New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia, both as a headliner and as the special guest of artists like Jesse Malin, Willie Nile, Joe D’Urso and Kieran McGee. His debut album, the self-released/ recorded/produced East Avenue, has received radio play in New Jersey and praise from musicians like Pete Yorn. He is currently a student at Princeton University in New Jersey, studying under internationally renowned composer Paul Lansky.

George Wirth
George Wirth is a singer-songwriter with a gift for telling human stories shaped by imagery and narrative. His unaffected, lived-in vocal style and guitar arrangements suit his songs perfectly, with images and melodies that resonate long after the music fades. In his live performances, George’s songs are often interspersed with humorous stories, observations and rambles that take on a life of their own, resulting in narrowing the gap between performer and audience.

George has been introduced to audiences and shared performances with friends Rod Picott, Abbie Gardner and Red Molly. He’s appeared on bills with Anais Mitchell and Richard Julian at The Saint in Asbury Park, New Jersey, where he performs regularly. George has received nominations in two Asbury Music Awards categories- Best Acoustic Act and Best Local Release for his Lights of Brigantine CD in 2006, and Top Male Acoustic Act in 2007 and 2008. His song “Eisenhower Summer, 1952” was selected for the Spring 2007 issue of Sing Out! Magazine and was included on the Sing Out! CD. George’s “Old Dancing Fool” has just been recorded by Americana trio Red Molly on their newest release Love and Other Tragedies.

Jason Vitelli
Jason Vitelli is a Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter whose powerful performances and writing embody a most stirring character. A smattering of genres, including folk, blues, progressive rock, and jazz, bring to life his emotive delivery. His journey began as a child studying and performing on classical piano. This focus expanded in his teen years to include electric guitar. Thereafter, Jason studied composition/ vocal performance at Binghamton University and music technology at NYU. The combination of these learned skills allowed him to compose music for short film, documentary, new media, and theater.

His varied experience soon brought him to start a business in 2005 called Music for Multimedia. Inadvertently through his composing, Jason found he was longing to perform again. He soon began writing songs about his life in New York that he would perform at the local open mikes. The repertoire grew and he gained the wherewithal to perform full sets around the New York City circuit. Jason used his acquired engineering and arranging skills to self-produce these songs into an album that he finished in 2008 with the former Atlantic Studios mastering engineer Barry Diament. The result was a concept album much inspired by the British art rock albums of the late 70’s (ala Peter Gabriel, Robert Fripp, Brian Eno, David Bowie). Similar to these albums, Jason combines songs with instrumentals and uses a large sonic palette from which his protean lyrics emerge.

Kaye Reznick
Kaye Reznick is a guitar fingerpicker with a strong, compelling voice. Her original music is a mixture of one measure family life, one part protest, a portion of love and lust, and a good pinch of irreverence. Kaye began her music career in his 50’s, having lost the use of her hands for a while and decided that there would be no more wasted time once she regained it.

She has written one song per month since, several of which have won awards. Kaye is an active performer on the west coast of the United States.

Joe Whyte
Combining equal parts folk, rock and Americana, New York City singer/songwriter Joe Whyte’s songs have been described as “alt-country pearls that shimmer with simplicity and effectiveness” and “beautifully crafted, melancholic Americana.” His vocal delivery, storytelling and confessional lyrics convey a sense of urgency not typically seen in today’s music industry. Joe is currently writing material for a follow-up to 2007’s critically-acclaimed Devil in the Details, which received 4 Stars from Maverick, was named to Americana Roots’ Best of 2007 List and was predicted to “make history” by Rootsville. His music has begun receiving regional radio play (WBJB, WFDU, WDVR, XM, Sirius) and TV placements (NPR’s Road Trip), while also catching the attention of noted music attorney George Stein, manager of the late Jeff Buckley.

Joe has performed throughout the United States, United Kingom and Ireland with artists such as Steve Forbert, Josh Ritter, Son Volt, Glen Hansard, Slaid Cleaves and The Duhks to name a few. He is currently endorsed by Elixir strings and for the past 4 years has been a recipient of an ASCAPlus award, a merit-based songwriting grant from ASCAP.

Marc Black
Marc Black is a songwriter who deals with social and spiritual challenges, one song at a time. He is one of very few artists whose music has found a home in both folk and pop radio as well as in avant garde shows such as Jonn Schaeffer’s New Sounds on WNYC. He won 2008’s Artist of the Year and Song of the Year honors from ABC’s Fame Games program, and his song “Ooh I Love My Coffee” is up to #4 on their Global Breakout Chart. Marc was recently featured for a full week on the nationally syndicated Art of the Song radio program. He received the Mobius and the London International Advertising Awards for Best Original Music, and has also been noted for songwriting, production and performance by Rolling Stone Magazine, the American Library Association, and Billboard Magazine. His most recent projects include an inspiring song and video in support of Barack Obama, “Step Up America,” and his “Love Song for Rachel Maddow,” which has already been viewed more than 1,600 times on Youtube.

Rick Kennedy
Rick Kennedy performs a uniquely personal sound drawn from rock/country/folk roots, reminiscent of the college coffee houses that were his beginning. Moving quickly to a lead guitarist for popular regional bands in Ohio (Eli Radish, Buckeye Buckeroos), Colorado (Airborne, Emersom Biggins) and for the David Alan Coe band, Kennedy has toured and traveled, sometimes with band and sometimes on a personal journey, capturing all in his compositions. Most recently performing at music festivals and smaller intimate venues, the music he plays is his own, whether originals or unique cover interpretations. Playing “anything with strings,” Rick is as comfortable on the mandolin, banjo and keyboard as he is playing the guitar, accompanied by the harmonica and a distinctive voice.

Ted Hefko
Ted Hefko was born in the mid-seventies in Madison, Wisconsin—a town where the hippies won and colorful murals and rusting VW Microbuses dotted the streets. His dad had a reel-to-reel tape player with bootlegs of Bob Marley, Stevie Wonder, and Fela Kuti. He had plenty of records too, including Miles Davis, Albert King, Pharoah Sanders, and Bob Dylan. Ted formed his own group in high school playing guitar and saxophone and studied with an avant-garde sax player named Hanah Jon Taylor.

From this bohemian enclave, he ventured out. Having saved up money working at a fast food restaurant he traveled to New Orleans for The Jazz and Heritage Festival when he was seventeen. Ted took full advantage of New Orlean’s musical diversity by working with everybody from jazz greats such as Warren Battiste, to R&B vocalist Tondrae, to meringue bands such as Los Sagitarios. By the time he graduated from the University of New Orleans with a B.F.A. in Jazz Saxophone he was already on the road with a jazz-jam band called Idletime. The band toured nationally for over two years. Since moving to New York from New Orleans some five years ago, Ted has been busy leading his own band, Ted Hefko and The Thousandaires, featuring some of the city’s most talented players and working and recording with some great bands as a sideman along the way.

Judges

Brent Johnson
Brent Johnson is the music columnist for The Trenton Times in Trenton, New Jersey, covering entertainment for the paper since 2006. Before that, he studied popular culture and folk music as an American Studies major at Rutgers University and was the managing editor for the school’s independent student newspaper, The Daily Targum. Brent also co-wrote the Rutgers section of Schools That Rock, a book published by Rolling Stone about colleges with lively music scenes. Brent will also be an emcee on the Gateway stage

Dave Ambrosy
Dave Ambrosy is a local television producer, cameraman and editor for Channel 3 in East Brunswick, New Jersey, for the past 25 years. Dave is also a drummer who has backed many well-known bluesmen including Otis Rush, Frankie Lee and Sonny Rhodes. Currently, Dave is recording and performing at clubs and festivals regionally with the band The VooDUDES.

Mark Trautman
Mark Trautman is Artistic Director and Conductor of the New Brunswick Chamber Orchestra and Director of Music at Christ Church in New Brunswick, New Jersey. His orchestral conducting has been described as “clear and communicative” by Classical New Jersey. He has conducted a wide variety of literature with the NBCO, including works by Bartók, Copland, William Grant Still, and more. Mark has performed recitals in the United States as well as Europe, including the new Bach organ at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig and the historic Wagner organ at the Brandenburg Dom. In addition, he has served as an adjudicator for events sponsored by the American Choral Directors’ Association, the American Guild of Organists, and the New Jersey Folk Festival. Mark serves on the music faculty of the Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, and holds degrees with honors from Towson University in Baltimore, and Westminster Choir College in Princeton.

Richard Skelly
Richard Skelly is a music journalist whose stories and reviews have often appeared in Goldmine, Sing Out!, Folk Roots, Roots World, Guitar World Acoustic, The Independent Music Producer’s Journal, Y’all, and is a writer for the music sections of The Asbury Park Press and U.S. 1 Newspaper. He is also a contributor to several books, including the All Music Guides to blues, jazz, and rock, and has been the host and producer of The Low-Budget Blues Program on Thursday nights on WRSU (88.7 FM) since 1981. His other areas of journalist expertise include golf, real estate, and the environment. Richard will also be an emcee on the Skylands Stage.
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