An interview with Jim Morgan from the International Songwriting Competition

Welcome to the latest episode of Harmonious World, in which I interview musicians about how their music helps make the world more harmonious.

This episode offers something a little different - a snapshot of the world of songwriters and an insight into an international music competition. The International Songwriting Competition is an annual song contest that offers aspiring and established songwriters to have their songs heard in a professional international arena. Joe explains something of the aims and mechanics of the competition.

I'm delighted that Harmonious World has become one of the ISC's industry partners.

The track at the start and end of this conversation is the Harmonious World theme tune, performed by pianist and composer Joe English.

Thank you for listening to Harmonious World. Please rate, review and share: click on the link and subscribe to support the show.

Don't forget the Quincy Jones quote that sums up why I do this: "Imagine what a harmonious world it would be if every single person, both young and old, shared a little of what he is good at doing."

Transcript

Hilary 0:05

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of Harmonious World. My name is Hilary Seabrook, and for this episode, I'm delighted to be joined by Jim Morgan from the International Songwriting Competition ISC. And I'm looking forward to finding out more about what makes them tick. Hello and welcome to Harmonious World. It's a great pleasure to have you telling me about uh the International Songwriting Competition.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Yeah, well, thank you for having me.

Hilary 0:36

Tell me about the competition and when it started.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

So ISC started um in 2002. Um so over 20 years ago now. Um we originated in Boston. Um the woman who started it, um, her name is Candace Avery, and I was working with her at the time in Boston on um the Boston Music Awards, and which was a physical event, and the Nemo Music Conference, which both both of them were um pretty well established and um respected in the New England area. Um and she'd been doing that for quite a long time and was kind of losing, she thought she was losing focus on songwriting, um, and she wanted to kind of get back into that as opposed to doing a um a physical event. And so we kind of created it in 2002 and had no idea kind of how successful it was going to be. And it ended up being a lot more successful than we anticipated. And after the first year, she basically decided that she had enough of Boston and wanted to move. Um, so we looked at other major music cities, um, you know, LA, New York, and Nashville. And we actually um were coming down to Nashville for another music event called Folk Alliance, um, which has been around for quite a long time in the States, uh longer than we have. And they were holding it in Nashville that particular year. So we came down and just kind of like, yeah, this seems like the place to be. So um we went back to Boston after that event, and she sold her other businesses in a matter of weeks, and we packed up and moved down to Nashville, and we've kind of been here ever since. So 2003, we've been based out of Nashville, really.

Hilary 2:47

Well, and and I I guess that kind of makes sense because some of the best songs in the world, I mean, have been written in and around Nashville, haven't they?

SPEAKER_00 2:55

They have, and and to be fair, I had no idea. I mean, like a lot of people, I just thought Nashville was a you know country music town when uh when I first got here. Um, and it's changed, I mean, it wasn't really just a country music town even back then, back in 2002, but it's certainly not like that now. It's um, I mean, their moniker for Nashville is music city, and it it really is, it has so much of everything to offer here, whether it be jazz, um, rock, you know, hip hop, country, obviously. Um, but it's a very diverse music scene down here. And the fact that there were so many studios already here, obviously originally for country, country music, um, it's pretty centrally located um Nashville for touring as a hub, um, and the cost of living is very affordable. So I think all of those factors help contribute to um musicians wanting to move here um and um you know base their career out of Nashville. And it's also I think the Nashville music scene is a lot more supportive than um LA and New York, from what I've heard. Um it's very much a community here. So um, you know, all of those things I think help contribute to making Nashville an amazing music city.

Hilary 4:35

Yeah, fantastic. Uh so give me some names of people who have won, because I because it's a it's an impressive uh an impressive roster, isn't it, of of people who have won the awards in the past.

SPEAKER_00 4:49

Yeah, absolutely. Um so um, you know, from the jazz field, we've had people like Gregory Porter um has been a winner in our competition. Um the LeBouff brothers um from jazz have both been winners. They're actually really interesting because they started entering our competition as teens in our team category. Um and they always do really well in our team category. So being able to watch them all the way through their career um, you know, end up becoming Grammy winners was pretty pretty amazing. Um, but um Omar Sosa has also been um a winner multiple times in our competition. Um Lionel Luwecki has been a winner um in our competition. Um and then obviously we've had you know pop people as well. So people like Passenger um has been a winner in our competition. Bastille um have been uh the main songwriter Dan has been a winner in our competition before they were signed. Umes and I with the song Dance Monkey was a winner in our competition, Vance Joy with the song Riptide was a winner in our competition. Um Gourtier was a winner in our competition, Kimbra has been a winner. So yeah, we've had quite a lot uh over the years, and um, you know, we basically just see ISC as another stepping stone in their career, you know, for for a lot of these people. But it's definitely flattering to see such talented people, you know, enter our competition and and be recognized, you know, through the industry that we have.

Hilary 6:40

Yeah, absolutely. So uh, and I'm I am I correct that I think the deadline for this year's competition is tomorrow or something.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Well, we basically I'll give you a little bit of a uh an insider tip. So musicians are notoriously slack, yeah, and they do leave everything to the last minute. So we tend to run a number of deadlines throughout our our um throughout the year. So our extended deadline is actually tomorrow, but after tomorrow, we will be taking entries because we'll have a number of um special promotions that'll annual special promotions that run every year. And those will include entry into ISC 2024, and those will run pretty much all the way through until the end of the year. So if you don't make it by tomorrow to enter the competition, you'll still have um additional time to enter if you're looking to enter or if you're working on a um, you know, a song that you want to get in the competition.

Hilary 7:39

Fantastic. I've I know a few people who I'm gonna be uh pointing in this direction because uh uh I've just actually just interviewed um an old friend of mine called Ashley Slater, who's got a Christmas album out, and there's some amazing songs on that. So he should definitely get entered.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Yeah, yeah. Um, I mean, we get and we get um entries from all over the world, and we have plenty of UK, you know, finalists every year with the competition. Um, in fact, about 50% of our entries come from the US, and 50% are outside every year for the competition. And that's pretty much evenly split with the winners in the competition, too. It ends up being that way too, um, which is amazing. I mean, we're we're definitely the international songwriting competition.

Hilary 8:31

Yeah, that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

That's yeah, yeah.

Hilary 8:35

That's great. Uh so what's the next sequence of events then? So the you get all of the entries in by sort of by the end of the year or thereabouts, and then who who are the judges?

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Yeah, so we so the way the competition works, um we basically have an internal listening committee here that listens to everything that comes into our office. Um, and like I said, we'll be taking entries all the way through until the end of the year, excuse me. Um and then once we've um our listening committee has reviewed everything that's coming to our office, we narrow that down to semi-finalists, and then those normally get announced late February, early March. Um, and then from those semifinals, we narrow those down again to finalists, and those normally get um announced, I would say, around mid-March. And then once we've announced finalists, those um songs then get sent to our celebrity and industry judges that you see listed on our website. Um, and then it's a matter of us waiting to get those results back from all of those people. And um, if you look at our website, you'll see the the caliber of judges that we have. Oh, yeah. It's pretty impressive. So it's people like you know, Mariah Carey, Tom Waits. Um I'm trying to, I can't even remember who or one of our judges every every year because they they quite a lot of them change, although some of them do stay on for um years, uh year and year. Um Tom Waits has been doing it now for over 15 years. So yeah, it's it's it's Nancy Wilson, that's another one. Um, so it's it's you know, it it takes a lot to put the competition together. Um, takes us all year to do that. Um, but I think there's a reason why we're you know considered to be the um you know the biggest and best songwriting competition in the world.

Hilary 10:40

So yeah, that's that's fantastic. Yeah, well, um we're gonna have to stay in touch because uh I want to I want to be able to sort of uh show people who the finalists are and and then obviously who the winners are.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

Yeah, absolutely. And when we do, we do something else kind of um cool as well. So when we announce finalists um for the competition, and those artists are all sent off to the celebrity industry judges. We also have an additional prize as well called People's Voice, where we put all of the finalist songs up on our website, and we let the general public also listen to all of those songs and select one overall winner as well that wins some additional prizes. Um your audience can definitely go at that time and go to our website and listen to um, you know, whatever category they they want to listen to, whether it be jazz, instrumental, pop top 40, you know, Americana, it it it we've got 24 different categories that that people can enter into.

Hilary 11:46

Yeah, that's fantastic. One of the things that I love about this podcast is that although it's primarily around jazz and um and actually quite a lot of classical and modern classical, I I I I like you know, new classical music, music that's being written now, even you know, for whatever, because I've because I I find the the crossover is is is huge that actually something that is written today quite often it's very difficult to to categorize. And one of the things I liked about the ISC is is you have all of these categories, and and I think some of them would kind of fit into different ones, and you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

Absolutely, yeah. There's definitely a lot of crossover. Um instrumental category is so and same with our jazz category too, they're both um, you know, very vast. I mean, we we um you know accept you know any and all styles of instrumental music, whether it be classical, you know, um bluegrass to you know fusion, funk, anything basically um for the instrumental category and out, you know, and jazz is extremely wide-ranging these days as well. So um yeah, you're you're absolutely right. It's um you know, the the main moniker for ISC is you know, we're looking for a great song, you know, and that and that can come in all shapes and forms. So yeah, we're just looking for great songs in the competition.

Hilary 13:23

Fantastic. Oh, brilliant. Thank you so much for talking to me, Jim. And I look forward to sharing more with my audience as we go through the year and then into next year. And I I will definitely promote the uh once you once you open for 2025, you know, because that'd be great.

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Absolutely. Yeah, and if you've got uh if your um you know listeners have or viewers have um any questions, they can always contact our office and where anyone in our office is happy to answer questions. And we certainly look forward to um you know great entries coming coming from um you know people that have um hopefully watched and and listened to your podcast. I think that'd be amazing if we had a you know one or two winners that that you know heard about the competition from you know this podcast. I think that would be that'd be very gratifying.

Hilary 14:15

Yeah, no, fantastic. Well, it's all about you know making the world more harmonious. And and as we're recording this, it's the week that Quincy Jones has died, and he's the guy who um inspired me in the first place, so to do all of this. So, you know, it's it's quite fitting in a way that I'm talking to you because he was he was such a great writer and arranger and everything.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

So amazing, yeah, and an absolutely amazing, amazing artist in his own right right, and just um such a gifted, you know, musician and and producer, you know, like producing alone, you know, the amount of Grammys he's won is just exactly, absolutely, and and and we will be playing his music forever, won't we? That's right, that's right, yep, definitely a legend there.

Hilary 15:07

Yeah. Fantastic. Thanks so much for joining me, Jim. It's great to talk to you.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Thank you so much. It's a pleasure.

Hilary 15:17

Well, I hope you enjoyed listening to that conversation with Jim Morgan from ISC. Uh, I'm gonna put the links into the show notes. So please do take a look at the website and see where you can get involved in this competition, either as a songwriter yourself or as a member of the audience, and vote for the songs that you like. You might also notice when you go online that Harmonious World is an industry partner of the ISC now. What you're listening to now is the Harmonious World theme tune as composed and performed by Joe English. I'm wishing you all the compliments of the season wherever you are in the world, whenever you listen to this. And I hope you have a very harmonious week. Thanks for listening to Harmonious World.