Newcomer Gretta Ray has won the $50,000 first prize in this year’s Vanda & Young Songwriting Competition with her debut single “Drive”. Out of the 3,934 entries, the young Melbourne artist came out on top ahead of Emma Louise and “Underflow” in second place, and Sydney’s Tigertown (“Lonely Cities”) and US songwriter Tia P (“4 Seats From Beyoncé”) who came in tied third.
18 year old Gretta Ray, this piece of recognition comes off the back of her triple j Unearthed High win – she was sitting her VCE exams when the news of the songwriting competition result came through.
“For any artist this would be an amazing thing in their career.” she has said “This is not an industry that brings a lot of money to many people. You really have to struggle or get other jobs to support yourself which I will probably have to do too. But this is an incredible privilege. I am about to finish high school and now I have this advantage in supporting my journey. I wanted to take a gap year and just throw myself into the music world. This makes that more possible. This is the job I really want to do and this will help make that dream more real.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syXD19Dkhy8
Emma Louise meanwhile, has taken out $10,000 thanks to AMPAL (Australasian Music Publishers Association), while Tigertown and Tia P have both received $5000 each courtesy of AEG Ogden and APRA AMCOS.
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