APRAP WEB June 2005..

ISC 2004 GRAND PRIZE WINNER: GIN WIGMORE
Virginia (‘Gin’) Wigmore’s astonishing win at the 2004 International
Songwriting Competition (ISC) shows the value of taking your chances when
opportunities beckon.
Gin heard about the ISC through her sister, (who discovered it through NZ
arts website ‘The Big Idea’). Rikki Morris, who’d produced and recorded Gin’s
demos, told her “it’s a long-shot, but you’ve got to be in to win.”
Never has a truer been word been
spoken. The 18 year-old beat over 11,000
entrants from 77 countries to take the ISC
Overall Grand Prize for her song
“Hallelujah”, receiving $40,000 (US) in
prizes. Gin also won the Teen Category
with her song “Angelfire”‚ and in July she’s
off to Boston to attend Berklee College
of Music’s Summer Performance Program.
When she received a call from the ISC
judges, director Candace Avery slyly first
advised her of her Teen category win. “I
had seen other New Zealanders on the
list of finalists and hoped a New Zealander
would win the Grand Prize, so I asked if
they could tell me who’d won. Candace
started talking to the other judges in the
room – they had me on speaker-phone –
I heard her saying ‘shall we tell her?’ and
Macy Gray laughing while everyone told
her to shut up. Then they told me I was
the Grand Prize winner!”
It’s a big accolade for one who was
unsure about devoting herself to a musical
career. In fact, her ISC Teen Category
winner “Angelfire” was the first song she’d
written, at the age of 14. She was
performing at open mic nights at The
Temple in Auckland while still attending Takapuna College – Finn Andrews from
The Vines was there at the same time. Around then Gin did her first recordings
with another Devonport local Rikki Morris. She had $150 to put 12 songs down
“to get them out of my system”, but Rikki was convinced Gin was a natural.
Describing herself as “dabbling in about
a million things” Gin went to Argentina for
her final year of high school, had a stint
working as PR assistant for Universal
Records on her return and then pursued
a BA at Victoria University. However the
biggest challenge to her songwriting was
the death of her father; Gin didn’t write
for a year afterwards. When she did write again, she produced “Hallelujah”
about her relationship with her Dad.
Writing has continued to be a personal, solo affair: “I always write in a quiet
place. The bathroom has got great acoustics, it’s the best place to write and
sing. We’ve got a tiny bathroom, an ensuite. I trundle my little stool in and sit
in front of the shower with my guitar and play. Friends come over and find me
in the bathroom with music spread everywhere round the sink and the shower!”
“We’re amazed at the consistently
high level of song-writing coming out
of New Zealand in the last few years.”
- Candace Avery, ISC director.
This domestic method recalls the practice of one of her favourite artists, David
Gray, who she admires for his “down to earth” quality: “He writes really nice
songs, keeps things simple. White Ladder was recorded in his bedroom - that
shows how simple it can get.”
By the time she entered the ISC last year, Gin was studying to become a high
school teacher at AUT. Not surprisingly, the win changed her plans: “now I’ve
won this award I want this to be my thing.
It’s given me the opportunity, the push,
to do it. Being a songwriter is such a hard
road, you’ve got to dedicate all your time
to it. You’ve got to surround yourself with
people who have faith in your work. The
ISC has done that for me in a big way.”
Gin is building up her support network.
When she flies to the US she’ll also be
meeting with music industry figures in
Nashville, New York and London: “I am a
bit wary of America, of the pressures. That
they’ll see me as a dollar sign. But my
mum is coming to Nashville with me. She’s
a business-minded woman, and calls a
spade a spade. So it’ll be good to have
her there.”
In the press release announcing the ISC
results, Candace Avery drew attention to
New Zealand’s musical success:
“Songwriters from 77 countries
participated in the 2004 competition, and
remarkably, New Zealand had winners in
four out of 16 categories. We’re amazed
at the consistently high level of songwriting
coming out of New Zealand in the
last few years.”*
Gin is insistent that NZ should be
listening to Avery: “The help I got from the NZ music industry was bugger-all.
Rikki Morris and I tried to get funding from Creative NZ - $2000 to do demos.
We tried with NZ On Air. Instead Rikki did the recordings out of the goodness
of his own heart. So many musicians struggle, and give up because they need
to pay their bills… We need more showcase
PHOTO: SPID
nights, more open mic nights, more scouts
out there. We need venues that are not
being ripped down and made into carparks
or apartment blocks… Now I’m more
inclined to take it overseas.”
Whether she stays offshore or not, it’s
clear Gin has ties that’ll keep her returning:
“I’d like to repay Rikki for all his help and do an album with him one day. There’s
still this view that nothing can be done as well in NZ as in the US or UK. It’d be
good if musos had the power to say ‘I want to do it here, come over here’.”
* All NZ finalists received placings or honourable mentions: Ruia Aperahama;
David Dallas, Malo Luafutu, Demetrius Savelio and Pete Wadams; Opetaia
Foa’i and Malcolm Smith; Derek Soloman.
Catherine Langabeer
APRAP June 2005
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