Teenage Gort singer brews up a storm!
A teenage singer from South Galway has had her original song included on a US label’s new album, designed as a showcase to promote the best of musical talent from across the globe.
Gort student Jenna Coughlan’s song has made the cut to appear on the California-based record company’s album, following an international song competition win.
BY SIMON FLATLEY
And the producers were so impressed by her talent that have since been in touch to make another one.
The sixth year student at Gort Community School is one of six young musicians from across the world to be included on a new album, with her award-winning song ‘Smoke Storms’.
The recording is being released by Future Youth Records, a non-profit record label dedicated to helping rising talents to create and distribute music, promoting social justice.
Landing a $1,000 prize for her song, Jenna admitted she was ‘definitely really surprised’ to discover she was then one of the six winners of the competition, and the only one from Ireland. In previous years, winners of the song writing competition had been flown out to Los Angeles to record their track – but that wasn’t possible this year due to Covid-19.
“It would have been a nice experience to record over there but I also have to concentrate on exams at the moment, as the Leaving Cert is coming up. It did work out well though as I was able to record the song from my bedroom,” she said
The 18 year old revealed that, a year or two ago, she bought recording equipment and “because I’d decided to try recording some of my songs, I guess that came in handy”.
“I saw an ad on Instagram for the competition, and I looked up Future Records to learn more about them,” she explained.
I learned they help young people to distribute music and promote environmental justice and I was really interested in the competition.”
Jenna revealed that her dad, John, is also very environmentally friendly, having covered the roof of their house and his business, Coughlan’s Centra, in solar panels, which she says is working extremely well.
“I never thought that I would actually win when I entered the competition. I did it more as a challenge for myself because I write music all the time,” said Jenna.
“Then they sent me an email, firstly to say that I was picked as one of the final ten, and then within a week or so later I got an email saying I was a winner. Within a few days I had a meeting with the producer on Zoom about how the song would go,” she added.
The song which she wrote is called ‘Smoke Storms’ explaining “it is kind of a song about how we really need to protect our planet, as we’re not looking after it and we are destroying it. Climate changes causes these smoke storms when the sky is filled with smoke, which happen a lot over in the States.”
The international song-writing competition received submissions from youth ages 16-24 living in Australia, Canada, Finland, Ireland, Kenya, Morocco, New Zealand, the Philippines, Portugal, Slovenia, South Africa, Sweden, the UK, the US, and Zambia.
Songs were voted on by an all-star panel made up of musicians, social justice advocates, entrepreneurs, educators, and music industry professionals.
Joining Jenna on the Think Earth Vol 1 are musicians from Canada, South Africa, the USA and Sweden.
Jenna has been writing songs since the age of 14 and is inspired by the likes of Pink, Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift.
Her family are obviously delighted with the win and her friends and teachers at school aren’t shy in playing the song over their phones.
Musicals and drama at the school was where she developed an interest in music and happily acknowledged the support of her music teachers Edel Quinn, Fiona Lyons and Eva Coyle and school musical director Tara O’Carroll, over the years, saying “I probably would have never started song-writing or playing music if it wasn’t for them.”
Next up for Jenna is the Leaving Certificate, after which she intends to record the song for the next album. Given her early success, it’s no surprise the 18-year-old plans on continuing to follow her musical dream, hoping to study music at Munster Technical University in Cork.
The ‘Think Earth’s Volume 1 EP’ and Jenna’s original recording ‘Smoke Storms’ is available on Spotify and Apple Music.