The pair topped the 2024 New Moon Songwriting Challenge – which required artists to collaborate – with a young Traverse City duo coming in second. Details at Local Spins.
From Michigan to California: Winning songwriter Aspen Jacob is studying music at USC. (Courtesy Photo)
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Up-and-coming Michigan singer-songwriter Aspen Jacobsen calls it “a bittersweet song” about feeling hopeless “because we don’t see ourselves as worthy of love.”
“It simply evokes a feeling of longing,” Jacobsen said of “Pray For Love,” co-written with Isabella Gueck. “This song is so personal, yet universal. It is simply wanting a love you think you cannot have.”
The singular, emotional composition captivated judges in the second annual New Moon Songwriting Challenge, earning Jacobsen and Gueck the top prize in this year’s competition that drew entries from more than 50 songwriters from across Michigan. The contest requires each entry to be a collaboration between writers.
“The lyrics are very poetic and original, and I love how it dealt with the subject on a lot of levels because of that,” wrote nationally acclaimed, veteran tunesmith Beth Neilsen Chapman, who was brought in as an extra judge to choose the winning collaboration in what contest organizer Elle Lively described as “an unprecedented tight race.”
Other judges echoed Chapman, praising the track’s “incredible vocal work” and the lyrics’
“confessional and poetic quality reminiscent of singer-songwriters like Phoebe Bridgers.”
For their winning entry, Jacobsen and Gueck will receive studio time at Electric Moon Studios in Grand Rapids, a 30-day playlisting campaign with Forthright Records, a photo shoot with Emma Vanderveen Photography, a single-release consultation with Crooked Tree Creative and five vinyl records from Great Lakes Records.
Jacobsen, who started her music career as a teenager in Southeastern Michigan’s Commerce Township, currently resides in Los Angeles where she’s about to start her junior year at the University of Southern California in the Thornton School of Music’s Popular Music Program. She was featured as “Emerging Artist to Watch” by Local Spins in 2022.
LISTEN: “Pray for Love”
TRAVERSE CITY’S TEENAGE RUNNERS-UP
For the second year in a row, the runners-up in the New Moon competition are young musicians from the Traverse City area.
Zinnia Dungjen and Audrey Mason’s “About Karma,” was co-written on their first day of school this past year at Interlochen Arts Academy.
“It was the perfect way to get back into the creative mindset there,” said Dungjen. “We wrote it about a boy we both had a massive crush on and it was a super fun playful way to express how it is to just be a girl and have fun writing. It’s songs like this one that reminds us of why we love to write.”
On the Beach: From A to Z (Courtesy Photo)
Chapman called the song “really fun and infectious and just had such a great vibe.”
Dungjen and Mason – who are majoring in songwriting – have been performing regularly in northern Michigan as A to Z, with an upcoming show on July 27 at Northport Pub & Grill, July 30 and Aug. 6 at Taproot Cider House, Aug. 9 at Shady Lane Cellars and Aug. 11 at Nine Bean Rows.
“To be recognized and celebrated is such an amazing feeling,” said Audrey Mason, 16. “Especially as young, female musicians, this is truly a validating and motivational moment for us. We are so incredibly inspired by the New Moon Songwriting Challenge.”
Added Dungjen, 17: “Audrey and I are both hoping to hop in the recording studio at some point this next year. Personally, I’m hoping to release an EP and some singles in collaboration with other students at Interlochen, and with the support of my private lesson teacher, (Traverse City singer-songwriter) Joshua Davis, to cap off my time at Interlochen as a senior.”
Prior to Interlochen, Dungjen attended Glen Late Community Schools; Mason was a student at The Pathfinder School.
LISTEN: “About Karma”
In addition to Chapman, this year’s judges panel featured Emma Vanderveen (Emma Vanderveen Photography), Andrew Oliver (Forthright Records), Shelby Brook (WYCE 88.1 FM), Ryan Jamgotch (Electric Moon Studios), Lively (Crooked Tree Creative), George Paulin (Great Lakes Records), Hunter Van Klompenberg (The Stray) and Brian Maloney (Sonic Coast).
Last year, the Kalamazoo indie-folk duo of Annabelle Fuerst and Payton Carter won the inaugural New Moon competition, going on to release their first studio album and later opening for international touring star Sarah Jarosz.
Traverse City teen Skyelea Martin and Trillium Groove, meanwhile, were selected as the 2023 runners-up in the contest.
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