Monday, July 11, 2011

Starting GRAMMY® Camp Off On The Right Tune By Mia Lepp

As we walked into Ground Zero for open mic night the smell of fresh brewed coffee filled the air. All our attention was automatically brought to the stage by the purple, red, and yellow spotlights. The first performance was by none other than the music gurus who are teaching the GRAMMY® Campers. They set the mood at Ground Zero, getting everyone’s head bobbing to the upbeat melody and inspiring the other Campers to sign up, because by the end of their performance the list was up to 35 people!


The night was then followed by a wide range of different performers singing their original songs, like Austin Taylor Zudeck, who surprised us all with his powerful voice and the way he conveyed the emotions of his lyrics to the audience, along with others like Sarah Lindstedt, Vikki Pritchard, Jack Rodenburg, and Elise Go. Others sung covers of already popular tunes, such as Kashish Shamsi doing "Nobody" by Alicia Keys, Danny Wirick, with "Sunday" by Maroon 5, and Brandon Martinez, who turned Justin Bieber's "Baby" into a sweet and heartfelt tune that got us singing along. Some of the performers who shocked everyone were Bria Kelly and her powerful blues song, Bj Monk with his moving piano piece, the No Name band, who had an upbeat sound with incredible bass solos, and Michael Arrom, whose instrumental piano playing was jaw dropping. There were also a lot of rappers that performed at open mic night, like Geo Quattrochi and Malik Rodgers.


Even though all of the artist were being cheered on before and after they went on, the MC, Brandon Roberson, kept the crowd pumped in between songs or when the performers were setting up by telling jokes or reminding us to tweet about GRAMMY Camp to make it the trendiest topic on Twitter. The night ended with GRAMMY Camp's own dub step performance by Brandon Holt and Tanner Grandstaff.


Check out footage shot and edited by Music Journalism's own Ryley Mueller.








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