OurStage a music discovery destination providing professional opportunities for up-and-coming talent, has partnered with Festival Network's Newport Folk Festival and JVC Jazz Festival Newport to help identify best emerging artists for the 2008 line-ups. Six top-ranked artists from OurStage.com have been selected to play opening slots at the nationally acclaimed festivals.
We were really impressed with the quality of submissions and the level of fan engagement on OurStage. We found the artist discovery process on OurStage.com to be extremely efficient and reliable and we look forward to using it again in the future.
-Jason Olaine, vice president of festival programming
In March 2008, Newport Folk and JVC Jazz teamed up with OurStage to create an online submission process and competition to find emerging, independent artists to perform at the 2008 Festival. This competition received 2,304 submissions in the past three months.
American Babies, The Honors, Ryan Fitzsimmons and Sydney Wayser were all selected to perform at the Newport Folk Festival. Dred Scott Trio and Ameranouche won slots at the JVC Jazz Festival Newport.
Many of the selected artists have strong, successful histories with OurStage: American Babies was selected to play Bonnaroo in 2007; Sydney Wayser won a slot at the New England Starbucks Music Maker competition and an opening for Kaki King at the SXSW official music opening party. Her SXSW performance was followed by a 4 city-tour with Kaki King, who discovered her at her SXSW set, and Ameranouche was a finalist in the New England “College Clash" battle of the bands.
At Newport Folk, all of the winning OurStage artists will be allotted performance slots on both the Main and Supporting Stages, sharing the stage with acts such as She & Him, Jakob Dylan, Calexico, Gillian Welch, Kaki King, Steve Earle and Cat Power. The artists performing at JVC Jazz will have similar opportunities to open for the likes of Aretha Franklin, Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock and Soulive.
Our mission is to help talented artists achieve critical exposure by solving the greatest challenge on the Internet today: sorting quality content from the sea of mediocrity online. With the Internet permanently changing the way music is discovered and distributed, we are excited not only to support talented emerging artists, but to work with great partners like the Newport Folk Festival to deliver this music to the fans.
-Ben Campbell, CEO OurStage
For more information, contact:
Jessica Morris
Director of Communication, OurStage
978-244-1440 ext. 247
[email protected]
For more information contact All About Jazz.
