The choral department, alongside Midtown High Votes hosted a collaborative songwriting and battle of the bands competition designed to promote student creativity and voting. 

During the competition, five songwriters and two bands performed for an audience. Midtown Votes president Sierra Pape said encouraging students to vote is vital in high school.

“Participating and exercising your civic right to vote is so essential,” Pape said. “We, as a club, do a host of events to engage youth in voting. Keeping voting fun is so important to engage youth, so I’m so happy we were able to do this battle of the bands.”

At the May 9 competition, Midtown Votes set up a stand to register students to vote before the performance. Junior Rose Glickauf was one of those students who left the show registered to vote. Glickauf also said she loved the atmosphere of the event.

“It was really fun to listen to student songwriters my age,” Glickauf said. “I really liked the overall vibe, and it was fun to watch everyone.”

In the songwriting portion of the competition, five students played their original songs for the audience. One of which was freshman Amalia Kaiman, who wrote “Purple Linen.” 

“The meaning of my song is just seeing the complexities of the world and seeing the beauty in [it], while also understanding the difficulties in it and wanting to get away from it sometimes,” Kaiman said. “It’s a very short song that uses a lot of descriptions. I think that can be very powerful, using very powerful language in a very short amount of time.”

Sophomore Reagan Vale, whose original song “All the things I did,” believes songwriting has allowed her to be vulnerable in expressing her emotions. 

“I love to share the things I have to say and my vision with the world and see how people take it, what other people’s interpretations are, and the way that music affects them,” Vale said. “I think it’s different for everybody, and it’s a great thing to be able to share it with the world.” 

Two bands also faced off against each other in this competition. One was Magnolia Black, a band of four members, including singer and guitarist junior Presley Lindsey. 

“We’re very into the Atlanta music scene,” Lindsey said. “We do a lot of shows with other bands, and we were the band in ‘Twelfth Night,’ the one-act show this season. We have a history of being in shows and being connected with Midtown, so the ‘Battle of the Bands’ was right up our alley. We didn’t even know there was a prize, so it definitely wasn’t for that. We just like performing and had a really good time doing it.”

Lindsey said that being a part of Magnolia Black has made him feel welcome within the Atlanta music scene and pushed him out of his previous comfort zone. 

“I love showcasing stuff we’ve worked on and getting in the performing mindset,” Lindsey said. “A few years ago, when I wasn’t in the scene, I was so scared of going to any shows because of how aggressive they were. The shows and people I go with now are so inviting, and it’s such a nice space. I think performing is such a big energy boost, and I love music and performing it with my friends.” 

After all of the performances, the audience voted on the winners of both the songwriting competition and the battle of the bands. This was another way Midtown Votes promoted the importance of voting.

“We initially had the idea a year and a half ago to do a battle of the bands event because we thought it’d be cool to incorporate voting on a band with the genesis of voting, in general,” Pape said. “It was kind of serendipitous this year when we asked Mr. Hill if they had anything related to battle of the bands or songwriting  because he was already planning an event, so we were able to coordinate together and uplift both of the missions.” 

The winner of the songwriting competition was senior Padraig Mahoney, who performed his original, “Ponification,” on his guitar. 

“I started writing my song about two months ago, and I finished it in the car ride here because I’m very indecisive with my music,” Mahoney said. “It’s meaningful to me because I put a lot of emotion into it, and it expresses who I am as a person.”

Mahoney said that he believes his intricate guitar part gave him an edge in the competition. As his prize, he received a $50 Visa gift card. He said the money would be going towards his music. 

“The prize money is going to go with some other money that I’ve been saving to hopefully be able to get a studio session to record my music because it’s expensive,” Mahoney said.

The winner of the battle of the bands was “Nuisance,” a band composed of sophomore Amauri Perrier, junior Alex Vinciquerra and junior Gabriel Corkian. Vinciquerra said that forming the band was a long process, but worth the wait. He said they competed in order to expose more people to their band.

“We chose to compete because we love doing this, and we wanted to have fun,” Vinciquerra said. “We also thought it was a good opportunity to play in front of new people and with ‘Magnolia Black,’ our favorite local band.”

Vinciquerra said he was surprised by their win, but hoped it was a good sign for the future of “Nuisance.”

“I’m shocked we won, ‘Magnolia Black’ is definitely a local fan favorite,” Vinciquerra said. “It was just fun to put ourselves out there. Obviously, I was very proud of ‘Magnolia Black,’ as well; they sounded incredible, and I loved hearing all the other singer songwriters. But I’m thrilled we won; it shows we have potential, and I’m excited for the future.” 

Pape said she hopes future events similar to this will continue to promote the importance of voting while connecting to high school students. 

“There’s voting trends that people who start voting continue to vote, so specifically engaging youth in voting outreach and initiatives is so powerful because it can create lifelong voters and pathways for people to vote throughout their lives,” Pape said. “There’s so much misinformation about voting and education is so vital. As a club, we are really serving a very necessary purpose in getting youth registered and educated to vote.”

*Sierra Pape is an Editor in Chief and Presley Lindsey is a writer on The Southerner