Introducing...Sammi the Star!!

In May I received a letter from Dunkley Music (a music store here in Boise) letting me know about their competition "Searching For A Star" held during the week of June 23rd-27th. The competition was for either vocal or piano performances with Kids (ages5-12), Teen and Adult categories in each. If you wanted to participate, you call Dunkley's and are assigned a scheduled one-hour block. In this hour, you are taken to a private recording room and are able to record your performance as much as you want in order to get your best performance. Once your hour is up, you select the best track and submit it for the competition. After the week is over, all entries are shipped to a professional judge who selects the winners. First place in each category wins $100 and their performance is then sent on to the National Star Search competition.

Anywho, I thought it sounded perfect: lots of fun, no pressure. So, I entered Sammi in the Vocal kids category. There was no trouble deciding the the song; we chose "Think of Me" from Phantom of the Opera. Sammi has been singing this since she was three and I thought that whether or not she won, it would be the perfect opportunity to get a recording of her singing this special song.

So, we worked on the song and got the lyrics up to snuff. On June 25th we went in (I was ehr accompanist) and after about 30 minutes we had the perfect recording. We did some more simply because it felt weird to leave with 30 minutes still leftover of our time-slot. But, after the hour we still felt that track 6 was the one. So, we submitted it and left with our copy.

A few weeks later we got a letter in the mail from Dunkley's and...Sammi won first place! I was so excited for her. She now has $100 and we're discussing what the best thing to do with it is. (She wants to buy an American Doll) In the letter it also said that her entry was entered in the National Competition but, they don't make a decision until November. I'm not exactly sure what it means at that level but, we're not too concerned about that...it was exciting enough for us to have Sammi win here. :)


We have Sammi's song on our blog if you want to hear it.
To hear her song:
1. Scroll to the bottom of my blog and press the pause button on the playlist to turn it off.
2. Click on "1. Samantha Swenson" on the playlist to the right. It takes about ten seconds to start.