Open Mic Night Kicks Off GRAMMY Camp® 2010 By Julian Ring

After arriving from all over the country to the first day of GRAMMY Camp® 2010, 81 high school students filed into the Ground Zero Café on the USC campus for an event known as “Open Mic Night.” The night saw Campers onstage to perform various music styles in front of the entire Camp. What followed was a three-hour extravaganza demonstrating the creative talent and potential of the student body. The Singer/Songwriters were a particularly strong presence, with campers such as Katie Gavin playing well-written original compositions. One performance that stood out was that of Carly Gibson, who played a hard-hitting southern love song featuring harmonics and overhand guitar. John Ryan Jarvis’s solo piece was also an enjoyable, simple listen. As the night progressed, many more campers ventured into the limelight. Brenna Miles amazed the crowd with her near-perfect vocal crooning, accompanied by a solemn piano melody.

However, students in the other career tracks were also represented in full force. For example, campers’ admiration for hip-hop music was made apparent in such energetic performances as those of Electronic Music Production’s Kyleel Rolle and Music Journalism’s Dertrick Winn. And to close out the evening, Guitarist Zaccheus Taylor wowed the audience as he soloed with the members of his combo in a cover of B.B. King’s “The Thrill is Gone.”

Campers left Open Mic Night exhausted but excited at the amount of sheer talent they witnessed. It was a great way for songwriters and musicians to share their favorite compositions and covers with the rest of the GRAMMY Camp community.