23-year old Melbourne singer Megan Washington is the winner of the first Vanda and Young Songwriting Competition.
Megan won the contest for her song ‘How To Tame Lions’.In January this year Megan was “Unearthed” by Triple J. She has appeared on Spicks and Specks and has toured with Tim Finn and Paul Kelly.
On winning the prize she said, “The calibre of songwriters in this competition was outstanding to say the least, so I am truly humbled and grateful to have been given this award. I'm proud to be associated with an organisation that promotes music as a tool for healing and expression, and one that is so selfless and generous in its endeavours”.
Second place went to Eskimo Joe for the sing ‘Foreign Land’ and third prize was won by Caitlin Harnett for her song ‘Tying Hands and Holding Shoelaces’.
Megan was won $20,000 in cash from Albert Music, return business class airfare to the US and UK, a songwriting mentorship from US songwriter Paul Williams and other prizes.
About this year’s contestants, board member and judge Jenny Morris said, “The calibre of songs was high and that made it very exciting to judge. We are very pleased with the winning entry and also pleased that this song will in many ways be the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy song for the next year. We are so grateful to the very generous prize donors and to Vanda and Young for lending their name to the competition. We encourage all song writers to enter next year because for just a small amount you do so much good and the kudos of winning this competition is very valuable to any songwriter at any stage of their career”.
