Additionally, the regional finalist who receives the most votes for his or her video on the contest’s website will advance to the October 19 finals as the ‘People’s Choice’ award winner.

Listed below are the regional finalists:

Northeast Round

Annalivia (Gloucester, MA)
Clarence Bucaro (Brooklyn, NY)
Hannah Hickok (New York, NY)
Julienne Dweck (New York, NY)
Queen Esther (New York, NY)
Still Saffire (Blauvelt, NY)
Susan Cattaneo (Medford, MA)
Suzie Brown (Ardmore, PA)
Tin Bird Choir (Pottstown, PA)
Victoria Vox (Baltimore, MD)

Southeast Round

Aaron Burdett (Saluda, NC)
Bella Innocent (Opelousas, LA)
India Ramney (Birmingham, AL)
Josh Threlkeld (Collierville, TN)
Nick Flora (Nashville, TN)
Nikki Talley (Brevard, NC)
Tokyo Rosenthal (Chapel Hill, NC)
Wes Casto (Nashville, TN)
Willie DE (Batesville, VA)
Yes The Raven (Hickory, NC)

Midwest Round

Count This Penny (Madison, WI)
Jacob Latham (Bloomington, IN)
Jake Armerding (Minneapolis, MN)
Jeremy Joyce (St. Louis, MO)
Lewis Rogers (Bloomington, IN)
Lyal Strickland (Buffalo, MO)
Mary MacAdams (Ankeny, IA)
Rachel Kilgour (Duluth, MN)
Wes Kirkpatrick (Chicago, IL)
Xoe Wise (Chicago, IL)

Southwest Round

Boris McCutcheon (Albuquerque, NM)
Brian Kalinec (Houston, TX)
Christina Osborn (George, UT)
Frank Martin Gilligan (Dickinson, TX)
The Hollering Pines (North Salt Lake, Utah)
Jaime Michaels (Santa Fe, NM)
Mikaela Kahn (Denton, TX)
Otter Creek (Salt Lake City, UT)
Ryan Kirkpatrick (Fort Collins, CO)
Victoria Celestine (San Antonio, TX)

West Round

Adam Brock (Portland, OR)
Brittany Mullen (Los Angeles, CA)
Ciara Elizabeth (Sherman Oaks, CA)
The Bottle Kids (Berkeley, CA)
R.X. Bertoldi (Everett, WA)
Sarah Gerristen (Redmond, WA)
Shani (West Hills, CA)
Taylor Jameson Clark (Portland, OR)
Tiff Jimber (Santa Monica, CA)
Yellow Marbles (Los Angeles, CA)

International Round

Breagh Mackinnon (Sydney, Nova Scotia)
Brooke Turner (Victoria, British Columbia)
Eddie Chun (Southampton, Ontario)
Glen Hornblast (Toronto, Ontario)
Jack Dani (Aurora, Ontario)
Jane Rahlston Pahr (Trieste, Italy)
Joanne Stacey (Revelstoke, British Columbia)
Morgan MacDonald (Halifax, Nova Scotia)
Nancy Beaudette (Williamstown, Ontario)
Sunny (Waverly, New South Wales, Australia)

During the contest finals on Oct. 19, a panel of music industry judges will select the 2013 grand prize winner, who will receive career-advancing recording and performance opportunities. These include, among other things, a fully-funded EP produced and mixed by producer, musician and songwriter Charlie Sexton; an appearance on National Public Radio’s Mountain Stage show, and a featured performance at Lincoln Center during the 2014 season.

“This is a unique opportunity for artists to work with one of the top producers in the industry,” said Gar Ragland, director and co-founder of NewSong Music. “And, we’re also proud to continue our long relationship with Mountain Stage. For nearly 30 years, they’ve been showcasing some of the world’s best music performers and songwriters.”

NewSong is an independent music organization that aims to build a supportive community of performers and songwriters across all genres of music and levels of skill, while identifying truly exceptional artists within it and introducing their music to a broader international audience.

“The Mountain Stage NewSong Contest has brought a lot of exceptional talent to our attention,” said Larry Groce, host and artistic director of Mountain Stage. He noted that, not only the winners, but many finalists have appeared on Mountain Stage over the years — including Ingrid Michaelson, Diana Jones, Antje Duvekot and Meg Hutchinson. “The fact that the contestants are judged by their songs as well as their performances equally makes it very appealing to us,” Groce added.

Although the regional finalists have already been named, songwriters have until Sept. 15 to submit songs in a general round at http://newsong-music.com/contest. Submissions start at $35 per song, with discounts for multiple submissions and members of songwriting organizations.

As in years past, this year’s schedule includes a wealth of talented performers, many of them performing in song-swap style workshops with folks whom they may have never even met, making for unique musical pairings. It also poses a dilemma of choices that will prompt attendees to consider running from one stage to another nearby one to catch certain artists.

In addition to the music, some 90-artisans and arts and crafts vendors will set up booths along the streets, as well as inside the Whaling Museum.

Admission to the festival is quite affordable at $25 for the weekend or $20 for one-day. Children under 12 will be admitted free with an adult.

While in New Bedford, you also can enjoy fresh seafood and sample tasty cuisine at one of the whaling city’s many Portuguese restaurants. Parking is free at the municipal garage.

For more information, visit www.newbedfordfolkfestival.com.

Greater New Bedford Summerfest
July 2-3, 2011
New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park
New Bedford, Massachusetts
www.newbedfordsummerfest.com

One of the Northeast’s most pleasant, refined and enjoyable music festivals takes over the streets of this historic New England port city for one weekend each July, enabling visitors to soak in the city’s rich maritime history by strolling its streets while listening to world-class contemporary and traditional acoustic performers and Celtic artists under tents set up along them and in the air-conditioned comfort of the fabulous New Bedford Whaling Museum’s auditorium. As in years past, this year’s schedule includes a wealth of talented performers, many of them performing in song-swap style workshops with folks whom they may have never even met, making for unique musical pairings. It also poses a dilemma of choices that may prompt you to consider running from one stage to another to catch certain artists.

In addition to the music, nearly 100 juried artisans and crafters will exhibit and sell their works at booths along the cobblestoned streets, as well as inside the Whaling Museum. Admission to the festival is quite affordable at $25 for the weekend or $20 for one-day. Children under 12 will be admitted free with an adult. Parking also is free at the nearby municipal garage.

While in New Bedford, you also can enjoy fresh seafood and sample tasty cuisine at one of the whaling city’s many Portuguese restaurants.

American Roots Music Festival
July 2, 2011
Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts
Katonah, New York
www.caramoor.org

WFUV Radio’s John Platt hosts the inaugural American Roots Music Festival, a day-long event on the beautiful grounds of this majestic Italianate-style villa, at which a diverse array of musical performances take place throughout the year. The festival will feature a mix of bluegrass, folk, string band, country, blues, gospel and jazz.

Tickets for the American Roots Festival are priced at $20-40, with children under 16 (for whom there will be free activities) admitted for half-price. Besides some wonderful music, visitors can wander around the gardens and enjoy picnicking. Food and beverages will be available for sale or you can bring your own, along with blankets or lawn chairs. Caramoor’s gates open at 10:30 a.m., while the music begins at 12:30 p.m. and extend through the early evening.

Formerly known as the Boston Folk Festival and held in the early fall, the festival has adopted a new moniker bearing the name of its radio station presenter, and now, in its 13th year, will be held at a new location on the UMass Boston Campus.

The WUMB Music Fest, running from noon to 7 p.m., will feature performances on three stages: a covered outdoor stage and two indoor ones, including a Coffeehouse Stage produced by the Boston Area Coffeehouse Association (BACHA).

Crafts and food vendors will be on the premises throughout the day, and children’s activities also are planned.

Ticket prices rise on June 1. They can be ordered online by logging-on to www.wumbmusicfest.org or by calling (617) 287-6911.

I’m a big fan of an amazing three-part harmony folk-pop trio called Girlyman, who are now based in Atlanta but started out in Brooklyn. Its members — Ty Greenstein, Doris Muramatsu and Nate Borofsky — used to play in the same kind of small local NYC clubs and coffeehouses as I played before starting to tour and getting a deal to re-release their first album with Amy Ray’s (of the Indigo Girls) label, Daemon Records. Back on the indie scene, they’ve put out a couple of new records, including the recent Everything’s Easy — they tour all the time, so check them out in your town!

The first song I ever wrote was for an assignment in my ninth grade English class. We had just read Of Mice and Men and had to do some kind of creative project about it. I just gave it a shot, not having any idea what I was doing. The song I came up with, with hindsight, was actually not bad — it had a real structure, three verses, and three choruses, but the choruses had different words each time. (I think I still tend to write choruses with parts that change each time through.) Doris sang harmony (we grew up together) and we recorded it onto a cassette tape using my little boom box and just me playing acoustic guitar. My teacher went nuts and said it was the best project she had ever received, and so from that point on I completely froze and couldn’t write another song for four years!

What is your typical songwriting routine?

The one constant has been a short period first thing in the morning for what I call “blurts” – little free-writes that I record onto my iPod. Basically I pick up the guitar, put the capo somewhere or change the tuning somehow, hit record, and start singing a song. Whatever happens, happens. Sometimes I’ll explore an idea for a minute, and sometimes I’ll keep going for 15 minutes or more. I have probably thousands of these little blurts lying around, and there among all the boring melodies, crappy chord progressions, and weird lyrics, occasionally something rises to the surface that has a ring of truth or a feeling that moves me in some way. That’s the material I come back to and try to craft into songs, which I do on my computer. The more often I sit down to write, the lower the stakes are – if nothing happens today, so what? I know there’s tomorrow and the next day.

What are your biggest songwriting inspirations these days?

My biggest songwriting inspirations have always been my peers – the other musicians I play shows with or hear at festivals. In particular, right now I’m really inspired by our new friend, Lucy Wainwright Roche – she has an original style, unexpected rhyme schemes, and a quality of truthfulness about her writing. Brian Gundersdorf from We’re About 9 always blows me away with his ability to go deeply into wildly original subject matter. Antje Duvekot’s songs also have that deep feeling of truth about them. {Editor’s note, Sharon’s Q & A with with Antje Duvekot was posted here on Aug. 5 and is archived in the Features section]. I think all the writers I love share the quality of writing songs that are channeled more than thought out – songs that are written from a place deeper than thinking. Dar Williams is another example – her songs have a wildness and a free association that is hard to achieve by trying. You get the feeling she really lets go. Of course all these people are masters of craft as well and have internalized form to the point that their brilliance seems effortless. Recently we’ve been touring with the Canadian band Po’ Girl and I’ve been really inspired by their originality, especially in their arrangements. There are so many examples!

Do you get competitive (in a good way) with Doris and Nate about songwriting?

I think when Doris and Nate start writing batches of songs, it motivates me to get going on mine. My fatal flaw has definitely been leaving songs in the oven FOREVER, whereas those two tend to write quickly and be done with it. I can be a big editor, sometimes to a fault. Sometimes I’ll write a billion verses before I’ll realize what’s essential. I think this is actually part of what makes co-writing with Nate or Doris so great – they are good at getting down that first draft with a lot of energy and I’m good at pinpointing an exact word or phrase. I think in the past we’ve been more competitive or threatened if one person’s writing a lot more than the others, whereas now we just use it as motivation, or else we jump right in and co-write.

How do you keep songwriting on your plate when you are touring/recording? Seems like it would be so hard to keep writing front and center.

I find it hard to write on the road because we usually share hotel rooms and there’s just no privacy. So my home time is really the only time I get and often we have rehearsals or recording sessions going on, too. I just do the best I can. Even an hour in my studio is better than nothing, and it’s hard to find a valid excuse not to put in an hour in the morning. Sometimes I’ll get a lot of lyrics while I’m driving and then I try to remember them and write them down at the next rest stop. Several of the songs on our latest album were written in hotel rooms or in the van, which goes to show that writing can happen anywhere.

Do you have any goals these days when it comes to your songwriting?

I’d like to finish more of the songs that I start, and I’d like to finish them faster so that they contain more of the original energy of the idea. Beyond that, I’m interested in co-writing with other people, writing on other instruments besides the guitar and in exploring different tunings and song structures. And I’d like to maybe take a songwriting workshop or go to Rocky Mountain Song School or something like that. I’ve never taken any kind of songwriting workshop for fear it would just add more voices to the chorus of editors already in my head, but I think it might be a good experience.

How has being in Girlyman changed (or not changed) your songwriting?

I pretty much write what I want to write, although not all of it is suitable for the band. There have been songs that I’ve been really excited about that just didn’t work with the three of us. That’s happened for all of us at various times, and it’s always a real bummer! But the fact is, not every song is appropriate for three voices or for the instruments we happen to play. Someday I’d love to release a solo album to give those songs a home, but I can’t say when I’ll have the time. I actually included one such song on our last album (Hudson), and just sang it by myself with one guitar. I thought it was actually nice to have a break from our vocal blend for one song out of fifteen. Sometimes I think my songs are too weird for Girlyman, but then I included one of the so-called weird ones (“Easy Bake Ovens”) on the new album and that’s the song everyone keeps talking to me about now. So I’m letting myself write a little weirder, because it’s interesting to me when my ideas of what images or what chords belong together gets played with a little. I like not knowing what’s gonna happen next.

How do you feel about the songs on your newest album, Everything’s Easy? Similar? Different? Better? And what was it like recording at Nate’s instead of in a big studio?

I really love the new album. It was a totally grassroots project that felt incredibly natural even when the learning curve was steep and we had no idea what we were doing. Recording it at Nate’s house made a huge difference because we could really take our time developing it, slowly layering sound, adding exactly what we wanted to hear. In the past, we booked two weeks of studio time and whatever happened in that time, that was it – we had one or two days for overdubs, total. On “Everything’s Easy” we had time to sit with the songs and develop a vision for them. We had time to experiment, to bring in drummers and cello players, to have friends drop by and sing a harmony part. We had time to change lyrics and to re-do vocal takes that we knew we could sing better. We played most of the instruments ourselves and we played things that weren’t even instruments, like a colander I hit in lieu of a hi hat. We even had the freedom to change our minds about what was going on the album – for example, one of my songs wasn’t even 100% written until the very last day of recording. I remember I called Nate early that morning and said “I know what the second verse should be, and I’ll die if I don’t get to change it!” It was great to be able to do that.

Who were your biggest songwriting influences growing up?

My biggest hero from age thirteen until I first heard the Indigo Girls was Paul Simon. Back then Doris and I learned every single Simon and Garfunkel song on guitar and every single harmony part and we’d sing late into the night in her parents’ kitchen – I guess that probably served us well, actually! I remember the first time I heard “Closer To Fine” on the radio I was stunned. I was really amazed, in particular, by Emily Saliers’ writing back then – she and Amy both wrote these raw songs and sang with such intensity, and especially in 1989 in suburban New Jersey it was just so different from anything else I had heard. In college I listened to The Story a lot – Jonatha wrote these songs that kind of hurt, with oblique lyrics and dissonant harmonies and strange time signatures. Then Ani DiFranco came to campus. There were maybe 30 people at the show and she blew us all away by just saying things as they were. I had never heard that before, either.

To hear a few of Girlyman’s songs, visit www.myspace.com/girlymanband.

Sharon Goldman is a New York-based singer-songwriter and member of Sweet Bitters, a female folk pop duo. She recently launched Songwriting Scene, a blog for songwriters about songwriting, from which this column is republished with permission.

So, when I started Songwriting Scene I knew I just had to find out some of her songwriting secrets — there must be some for me to learn from, right? Antje (pronounced “Aunt-yuh”) was kind enough to answer a bunch of questions for this blog post, just a few months after releasing a new album, The Near Demise of the High Wire Dancer.

Here we go!

You started writing songs as a teen — what are your thoughts on some of the stuff you were writing back then? Cringe-worthy or surprisingly good?

Oh, soooo cringe-worthy. Just awful — lines like “I want to go to a place where there’s no difference between black and white [people]” and “If God exists then how come he never comes through?” So direct and unpoetic.

It’s amazing that you were writing songs in English at such a young age when you only moved to the U.S. at 13 — did you already know English well when you came to the States?

No. I learned most of my English upon being thrown into an American high school in Delaware, which worked astoundingly well. The fact that there were no other Germans for me to talk to meant it was ‘learn English or sink’.

Did you have any songwriting mentors along the way?

I honestly did not. I wrote in a vacuum and I had these relationships with my heroes through their cassette tapes. It’s still amazing to me now to have gotten to meet a lot of those old heroes personally so many years later. I am friendly with many of my influences such as Ellis Paul, John Gorka, Lucy Kaplansky and Richard Shindell. But no, i didn’t have any mentors. I probably could have used some.

What are your top songwriting habits? How do you manage to keep writing while you’re also touring/recording/promoting etc.?

I write best when there’s something else really pressing looming over me, like if I planned to take the afternoon to do my taxes. That’s when I will tend to get really inspired. I might get a lead on a song at that time and it will become clear that I couldn’t possibly do my taxes now! With touring it is more difficult because if the muse strikes one afternoon when I’m on the road, i can’t very well miss the gig because of it and so I have to shut her down although she definitely calls when I’m out there. Once I begin writing I usually don’t stop at all for three or four days. I don’t have pets or children, so nobody dies.

Who are your biggest influences songwriting-wise?

Dar Williams and Ani di Franco gave me license to talk about myself in song in ways that are truthful and unglamorous yet poetic. I listened to them in college and they really spoke to me because their music was so raw and so human and vulnerable. That’s what empowered me to be honest like that in my music. Before that the wonderful sad sounds of John Gorka and the beautiful songs of Ellis Paul and Cheryl Wheeler (so the more folky singer-songwriters, I suppose) got me through my adolescence.

Have you ever done any co-writing?

Yes, I have. Melodies don’t come easy to me so I’ve occasionally employed other artists in helping me refine a melody (Vertigo, Light House, The Bridge). I don’t typically do well with lyric co-writing since I usually kind of know what I want to say. So all of my co-write songs that I’ve recorded are my words with melodic input from others. I’ve been lucky to co-write with amazing talents like Seamus Egan, Mark Erelli, Kate Klim.

What comes first for you — chords, melody or lyrics?

Chords come with melody. I spend long stretches of time looking for a melody that I like enough to set words too. So to me, if I’ve come up with a melody I like, even if it just has gibberish words to it, I feel like i’ve written a song because setting words to it is so easy in comparison.

What music are you listening to these days?

I am loving a band called We’re About Nine right now. Brian Gundersdorf is one of the writers for that band and I adore his artistic voice. Also, I’ve been liking this Canadian duo I recently discovered called Dala.

Do you have any specific songwriting goals right now? How do you keep your momentum and motivation going?

I’m going to a cabin in the woods for the month of August to write. I used to have all the time in the world when I wrote my first two albums. I really miss that. So I’m trying to recreate the sense of endless time, if even for an illusion of a month. We’ll see what comes of it. I might have to create some artificial tax deadlines for myself as well for the muse to come around.

Sharon Goldman is a New York-based singer-songwriter and member of Sweet Bitters, a female folk pop duo. She recently launched Songwriting Scene, a blog for songwriters about songwriting, from which this column is republished with permission.