17th Annual USA Songwriting Competition Kicks Off

Entries are currently being accepted for the 17th Annual USA Songwriting Competition. Winning songs of the 17th Annual USA Songwriting Competition will receive airplay on a nationally syndicated radio program “Acoustic Café” as well as Sirius XM Satellite Radio. This is the first Songwriting Competition that gives airplay to the winning songs, giving deserving bands, songwriters the recognition and exposure they deserve. Entrants stand to win a grand prize of over US$50,000 in cash and music gear from sponsors such as Sony, D’Addario Strings, Audio-Technica, Presonus, IK Multimedia, and more, making this the largest prize package for any annual songwriting competition. Other sponsors include: New Music Weekly, Loggins Promotion, AirplayAccess.com, Onboard Research, Acoustica, Livewire Musician, Sonoma Wireworks, Livewire Musician, etc. Los Angeles based songwriters Nenna Yvonne and Alexander Cardinale swept the top two positions of the 16th Annual USA Songwriting Competition (2011). Nigerian born Nenna Yvonne won Overall Grand Prize as well as the first prize of the Pop category with her song “Go Around”. This marks the first time in 6 years that the top song was written by a solo songwriter. Alexander Cardinale and co-writer Morgan Taylor Reid of Los Angeles, CA won first prize in the Pop category as well as Overall Second Prize with their song “Traffic Lights”. Alexander Cardinale is professional Hollywood actor as well as a singe songwriter. Molly Hunt became the youngest winner in the history of the USA Songwriting Competition at just 15 years old along with co-writers Troy Johnson & Jack Williams from Nashville, TN won first prize in the country category as well as Overall Third Prize with their song “Go There”. For the first time all 10 finalists in the Country category are all collaborations, marking the importance and significance of collaboration in recent years of songwriting. Helle Hansen, from Denmark is a 10-time consecutive year honorable mention winner, making her the most consecutive year winner so far. Other winners came from Peru, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, South Africa, and Austria USA Songwriting Competition has a long history of having winners getting recording and publishing contracts, have their songs placed on the charts as well as having their songs placed on film and television. 2009 First Prize winner (country) was signed to Universal Records. 2005 First Prize winner (Pop) Kate Voegele was signed to Interscope Records the year after she won and had her winning song hit top 40 on the Billboard Charts, her latest album hit Top 10 on the Billboard 200 Album charts this summer. 2007 Overall Grand Prize Winner Ari Gold had his winning song “Where The Music Takes You” hit #10 on the Billboard Dance Charts. Darrell Scott, winner of the country category of the 2005 USA Song writing Competition had his winning song cut by award winning country singer Faith Hill. Last year's winner in the instrumental category, Christopher Tinn won two Grammy awards in 2011. Judges include A&R managers from record labels such as Warner, Capitol Records, Universal, BMG/SONY Music. Songs may be entered in 15 different categories including Pop, Rock/Alternative, R&B and Country. Entries are accepted from now through May 31, 2012. First 1,000 entries will each receive a USA Songwriting Competition Compilation CD. Entries may be entered with MP3 files, Youtube videos or Soundcloud files. For more information, visit www.songwriting.net or email info@songwriting.net.