Finalists Named for Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition

Sept. 20, 2012 - PRLog -- Newark, NJ –  In 1942, a teenage Sarah Vaughan won the Apollo Theater’s amateur singing competition in a performance that was a launching pad for a career that transformed one of America’s original art forms and elevated the craft of jazz vocal music. Seventy years later, Vaughan’s legacy continues to resonate and will be celebrated with the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, part of the TD James Moody Democracy of Jazz Festival at NJPAC and at venues around Vaughan’s hometown of Newark, N.J.  

A distinguished panel of musicians, music industry executives, NJPAC leadership and online voters culled through nearly 900 submissions from around the globe to choose five finalists and a “Rising Star” for the inaugural Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition, the largest competition of its kind in the world.   Online voters listened to songs submitted to the contest nearly 90,000 times.  Today, NJPAC, JAZZ ROOTS™ and WBGO Jazz 88.3 announced the five competition finalists who will perform in front of an iconic panel of judges, an NJPAC Victoria Theater audience and viewers around the world through a live stream of the concert on October 21, 2012 at 3pm.  The finalists are competing for a chance to win the Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition SASSY AWARD, a $5,000 prize, and an opening spot at a 2013 JAZZ ROOTS concert.  The first runner-up will win $1,500, the second runner-up $500.   The Competition and final performance are produced by award-winning producer Larry Rosen and powered by Indaba Music (IndabaMusic.com), the leading online community of musicians and marketplace for music opportunities.

Judging the finals at the performance will be Grammy and Tony Award-winning jazz vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater, vocalese and scat pioneer Jon Hendricks, vocalist and Executive Director of Jazz House Kids Melissa Walker, WBGO radio host and jazz journalist Michael Bourne, and producer of JAZZ ROOTS and co-founder of GRP Records, Larry Rosen.  

The finalists are: Alexis Cole (New York, NY),  Ashleigh Smith (Lewisville, TX), Cyrille Aimée (Brooklyn, NY), Hilary Kole (New York, NY) and Sandra Booker (Sherman Oaks, CA). In addition, Jazzmeia Horn (Dallas, Texas) was selected as The Sarah Vaughan International Jazz Vocal Competition Rising Star Award winner. The award was created to discover young talented jazz vocal artists that deserve wider recognition and to mentor in their careers as jazz singers. The TD James Moody Democracy of Jazz Festival will make a donation in the name of Sarah Vaughan to develop an enhanced jazz vocal training program at Newark Arts High School. Sarah Vaughan was a proud graduate of Arts High.

For more information and the complete schedule of The TD James Moody Democracy of Jazz Festival. Please visit www.njpac.org.