ASCAP Songwriter Residency @ America SCORES



The ASCAP Songwriter Residency @ America SCORES continued last Fall and Winter with ASCAP songwriters spending three class sessions each with America SCORES students.

In Los Angeles, songwriter/producer Dan Mackenzie (Joss Stone, Eliza Wren Payne) led classes both at Charnock Elementary and Palms Elementary.

In Washington, DC, Vince Scheuerman (band Army of Me, Doghouse/Atlantic) led classes at Aiton Elementary and songwriter/producer Chris Keup (Jason Mraz, Graham Colton, OAR) led classes at Jefferson Junior HS.

And in Atlanta, songwriter Algebra Blesset (Homeroom/Kedar Entertainment Group) led classes at Carter G Woodson Elementary School, while multi-Grammy Award winning songwriter Adonis Shropshire (Mariah Carey, Usher, Ciara) led classes at FL Stanton Elementary.

ASCAP songwriter Dwayne Simmons, who is also Education Director for America SCORES in New England, led a songwriting session with students at Lilla G. Frederick Middle School in Boston, MA.

Many thanks to Dirty South Studios in Atlanta, and studio manager (Cliff Henson) who most generously hosted the America SCORES kids and donated free studio time for both Adonis' and Algebra's third class and recording session.

Listen to the recordings here

Video: Vince Scheuerman at Aiton Elemantary, DC

Blog: Vince Scheurman

Project Overview

View Artist Bios


This event is carbon neutral!




Overview
The ASCAP Songwriter Residency @ America SCORES launched in 2006 to create a collaboration between songwriters and students utilizing the craft of songwriting and music as another engaging and inspiring way for kids to express themselves. ASCAP brings its talented songwriters of all genres to teach three-day songwriting workshops as part of the America SCORES poetry classes. By the end of the three sessions, the ASCAP songwriter has co-written a song with the SCORES kids and recorded it. As part of the program, the students learn about the importance of labeling their own creative work with the copyright symbol, year and their name just as they would see on any published, professional creative work.

America SCORES, founded in 1999, is an after-school program that uses soccer and poetry to inspire a lasting dedication to education, literacy, healthy living and civic responsibility among urban youth. The program serves over 6,000 children in 15 cities across the country, providing after-school workshops five days per week. This innovative combination of soccer, writing and creative expression combats two of the biggest challenges for urban youth today: illiteracy and obesity. With teamwork as the unifying value, America SCORES inspires youth to be engaged students, life-long readers, and agents of change in their communities.

The ASCAP Foundation, a public charity dedicated to supporting music education and talent development, funds the ASCAP Songwriter Residency @ America SCORES. The ASCAP Foundation – a public charity dedicated to supporting music education and talent development – is supported by contributors, bequests and grants from ASCAP members, other foundations and the general public. We welcome your contributions, which are tax-deductible to the full extent allowed by law.


Artist Bios

Algebra
The Atlanta native insists that one can only discover her sonically. Algebra is the perfect curriculum for breathing life back in to a genre overwrought by factory made clones. No stranger to performing, Algebra has been lending her melodic voice to projects by Monica and Bilal for years. However, singing for other artists just as out of character for her as having someone else write songs for her. As Atlanta became a hot bed of popular music, Algebra taught herself guitar and performed regularly at open mic nights. This pivotal point in her career gave her time to develop her writing and performance skills further without restriction. This organic approach permeates her music. Algebra can easily tune into pop, rock, rap funk, crunk or sing a ballad effortlessly.

As the first artist to be released on the revamped Kedar Entertainment Group, Algebra enters the contemporary soul music landscape following legacies created by artists like D'Angelo, Erykah Badu and India.Arie all of whom developed under the watchful eye of Massenburg. However her sound is unique. Algebra at first is unassuming, you soon realize she is like the catalyst of a paradigm shift.

Roberto Poveda
Roberto Poveda spent many nights as a child in Cuba listening to his grandfather, a troubador, or folk singer, singing tales of love and legend. As a young man, Poveda joined Havana's burgeoning nueva trova movement, a collective of singer-songwriters who sought to bring a more creative and literary approach to Cuba's folk traditions. In 1989, he moved to Colombia, where he made a living as a television soap opera star while continuing to hone his music skills on the side. His songwriting talents earned him a deal with the music publisher Peer Music, and he moved to Miami in 1997 to focus on writing hits for Latin music pop stars. "Sueño Mamá" (I Dream, Mama) is from Poveda's 2004 solo album, Son Eléctrico, or Electric Son, a reference to the Afro-Cuban music style that is the root of contemporary salsa. Poveda sings,"I dream, mama / About you all night / And when I want to awaken, I cannot / I dream I am on a very long road / That leads to the sea and you, waiting."

John Francis
Born in New York City and raised in rural Pennsylvania, John Francis started to show his musical gifts at an early age. The Gospel and Folk music of his upbringing happened on Sunday mornings swaying with the church choir, or at home gathered around the family piano with his mother at the helm. The son of musicians, and Christian ministers, Francis grew up playing music with his parents, in front of crowds and congregations. As a young child, his father's Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Nitty Gritty Dirt Band records, and his mother's Neil Young and Dylan entranced John Francis.

At 12, Francis started writing, recording, and performing. After graduating with a degree in Literature and World Religions, Francis traveled to Ireland where the musical traditions of his family and ancestral homeland added fuel to the fire. In October of 2005, Francis released the critically acclaimed "Strong Wine & Spirits." With the single "Heavy, Heavy Love", the record garnered extensive radio play in the North East.

Francis was honored by ASCAP as the 2006 recipient of the prestigious Sammy Cahn Lyricist Award. Previous winners include John Mayer, JoshRitter. Francis has played in subway stations and dive bars, churches and county fairs, Dublin street corners and Nashville honky-tonks, children's classrooms and the United Nations, prisons and hospitals, as well as the most prestigious listening rooms on the East Coast and Ireland. He is currently finishing his new album, with Nashville producer John Carter Cash.

Dan Mackenzie
Dan Mackenzie is an EMMY nominated songwriter who has also won the prestigious ASCAP Sammy Cahn Lyricist Award (other winners include John Mayer, Josh Ritter and Lori McKenna.) He wrote and produced "ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS," recorded by Joss Stone. He has recently been writing several songs for the upcoming Holly/Bollywood musical film, "Basmati Blues," (other tunes penned by Moby, Brian Wilson and Burt Bacharach) and has had numerous song placements in film and TV.

Dan has just completed his own new release, The Universe Is A Great Big Place, (produced by Dan Mackenzie, Chris Keup and Stewart Myers, mixed by Robbie "Achtung Baby" Adams.) Mackenzie's 2004 release, A Complete Unknown (What Are Records?), received high marks from critics around the country. Two songs, "WWJD" and "Paint The White House Green," drew widespread attention from major political groups as Dan performed at fundraisers for democratic and green candidates.

Since then, in addition to songwriting and scoring film and TV projects, Dan completed The Eternal Optimist (unreleased) and has since been working on several diverse new recording projects. In addition to The Universe Is A Great Big Place, he also just completed a children's album, Dan Dan Doodlebug, and an indie rock album, The Honeybee Apocalypse.

Vince Scheuerman
Born into a religious cult in Gaithersburg, MD, Army of Me's front man Vince Scheuerman and bassist John Hutchins grew up together. Both characterize their upbringings in the cult as "repressive and damaging." By the time they were 17, they were playing together around Maryland in various bands and recruited drummer Dennis Manuel. Later, the trio added guitarist Brad Tursi. Rather than pouring all his energy into music, Scheuerman pursued mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland. While his training in science earned him a degree and, briefly, a job peering at atoms through a microscope, his difficulties adjusting to the mainstream never quite left him – music became an outlet for all that stung in the secular world.

By 2002, Army of Me was touring extensively on the East Coast. After three years of sharing stages with bands like Hot Hot Heat, Coldplay, the Strokes, Ben Lee, and the Vines. Although there was great press, Army of Me still had no record contract. That changed, in March 2006, when the guys finally inked a deal with Doghouse Records; around that same time, Hutchins amicably parted ways with the group. With Army of Me continuing, the Rise EP appeared that November, which was followed in April 2007 by their debut full-length, Citizen. The album was supported by a tour with new member Conrado Bokoles.

Dwayne Simmons
ASCAP songwriter Dwayne "Dagha" Simmons conducted 3 songwriting sessions with 11 students from the Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School in Dorchester. He taught the students music fundamentals and helped them to create a group song.

Dagha's debut solo album Object in Motion gained a 5-star review Hip Hop Connection magazine and called "as sharp as his moniker" in Elemental magazine. Dagha cut his teeth as part of the highly regarded Boston supergroup Electric and more recently gained notoriety for his appearance on the critically acclaimed Edan album "Beauty & The Beat". Dagha's new album 'THE DIVORCE' is out now and available on iTunes and Lewis Recordings.

Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer
Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer are an eclectic folk festival on their own terms, celebrating over 20 years of music together. Two GRAMMY Awards, eleven GRAMMY nominations in the Folk and Children's music fields, and 40 WAMMY Awards (Washington Area Music Association) for folk, bluegrass and children's music make them top artists on a variety of circuits. They have sung at the White House Easter Egg Roll, appeared on the Weekend Today Show and on National Public Radio, been keynote speakers for the AFL-CIO entertained the Queen of Thailand and performed at hundreds of folk festivals. Critics have praised their tight harmonies and instrumental versatility. Cathy and Marcy sing, yodel, harmonize, spin tales, play breathtaking instrumentals and reach out to their audiences, which take part in the celebration.


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