Max Hatt / Edda Glass wins 2014 Regional Mountain Stage Newsong Contest for Southwest

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - Nov. 7, 2014 - PRLog -- Max Hatt / Edda Glass are the Southwest’s regional winners of the 2014 Mountain Stage Newsong Competition. They will perform in the finals at Lincoln Center, NYC, on November 15th, as one of the 12 national and international finalists eligible for the grand prize. The grand prize winner will record an EP with producer Pat Sansone at Echo Mountain Studios, perform on NPR’s Mountain Stage program and headline a concert at Lincoln Center, among other venues.

“We’re honored and slightly flabbergasted to have this opportunity so soon after launching Max Hatt / Edda Glass,” says Edda Glass, the duo’s lyricist and vocalist. Glass says Newsong is the first contest they have entered. “I submitted us because I really believe they wants artists to do something different. There are so many of us listeners and musicians who want more from music, but we’re getting lost in the noise— we can’t even find each other. Newsong has already introduced us to striking music like [fellow contestants] Banner Days and Queen Esther. How awesome to discover them, and even cooler to get to meet them.”

To fund their travel from Santa Fe to New York, Max Hatt / Edda Glass launched an Indiegogo campaign [ https://www.indiegogo.com/at/flymaxhatteddaglass/ ] which raised half of its goal within two days of its announcement. Supporters can get an advance copy of the duo’s debut album, due out Spring 2015, along with other “perks” for contributing. “Our real goal with the campaign is to get new fans in on the ground floor,” says Glass. “We’re excited and we want people to have a piece of it.”

In addition to their original songs, Max Hatt / Edda Glass also play reimagined jazz standards such as Giant Steps and Take Five, with lyrics by Glass and guitar improvisation by Hatt. “Playing at Newsong is a chance to bring elements of jazz to a wider audience— that’s exciting,” says Glass. To wit, “Occasional Summer,” one of the songs that got them this far in the Newsong contest, features a Bossa Nova feel, guitar improv, and backing by renowned seattle jazz bassist Clipper Anderson. This all comes as no surprise to Max Hatt / Edda Glass’s New Mexico and Montana fans, who knew them first as Rio, featuring Hatt’s jazz guitar, Glass’s vocals and knack for Brazilian Portuguese, and the works of great composers like Cole Porter and Antonio Carlos Jobim. “The songs we play with Rio— Stardust or Girl from Ipanema — those songs were massively popular in their day. People would lose themselves in the sheer melody of it,” says Glass. “With our original music we want to draw more people into that listening experience again, both through the lyric and the composition. We want it to be immediately accessible and beautiful, but also deep and complex like jazz— so the more you listen the more you get.”

“Pop music is on a well-documented trend toward simpler and simpler music that doesn’t push its melodic and harmonic envelope,” adds Max Hatt, the duo’s guitarist and composer. “As a songwriter I’m trying to tell the musical stories that aren’t being told. Edda does the same thing with the lyric and the delivery. The trick is that it has to resonate, even as it surprises.”

Now in its 13th year, the Newsong Contest is one of the premier showcases of emerging performers and songwriters in North America, conducted in association with NPR’s Mountain Stage program. Newsong is an independent music organization, record label, and management company, with a declared mission “to build a supportive community of performers and songwriters across all genres of music and levels of skill. To identify the truly exceptional artists within this community and to work closely with them to develop their careers and introduce their music to a broader, international audience.” For more information on the contest, visit www.newsong-music.com . Pictures and media available for Max Hatt / Edda Glass at maxhatteddaglass.com

Press contact:

Julia Yates

manyhatproductions@gmail.com

406.461.8833

PO Box 5281

Santa Fe NM 87502

maxhatteddaglass.com