{"id":21349,"date":"2018-08-17T11:13:46","date_gmt":"2018-08-17T15:13:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=21349"},"modified":"2018-08-17T11:13:46","modified_gmt":"2018-08-17T15:13:46","slug":"top-20-aspiring-country-stars-selected-for-2018-hoedown-showdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/top-20-aspiring-country-stars-selected-for-2018-hoedown-showdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 20 aspiring country stars selected for 2018 Hoedown Showdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Singers from Aurora, King, Simcoe and Dufferin counties, and from towns and cities across Ontario, will be vying for a place in the Top 10 next week in the 2018 Hoedown Showdown competition.
\n30 aspiring country singers from just about every corner of the Province gathered at Theatre Aurora last week for the preliminary rounds. Some were familiar faces to the competition, others had put themselves forward for the first time, but they all had one thing in common \u2013 their submitted videos had just the right amount of \u201cit\u201d factor to wow the panel of industry professionals.
\nThe Hoedown Showdown is a country music competition held each year to coincide with the Magna Hoedown, York Region\u2019s largest annual fundraiser which has raised over $12 million since its inception for hundreds of local charities, non-profits and community groups across the GTA.
\nThe Showdown is Ontario-wide and offers contestants a grand prize valued at over $25,000, which includes a $2,500 cash prize, a Yamaha Guitar and amp package, a $2,500 styling and gift card package from Newmarket\u2019s Upper Canada Mall, two full days of recording at Metalworks Studios, and the Ultimate Artist Package, comprising of professional management, coaching, styling and song-writing from industry professionals.
\nThe Top 10 earn the chance to perform before an audience of thousands on the first of the two-night Magna Hoedown, with the ultimate winner performing the following evening ahead of the big headliner, which is set to be announced early next week.
\nThis year\u2019s semi-finalists include Collette Zorzella of Aurora, Zoe Jayne of Schomberg and Patrick James Clark, all of whom competed in the 2017 Hoedown Showdown, as well as Brooklyn McAuley of Innisfil.
\nRounding out the Top 20 are Vicki Bierstecker, also of Schomberg, Dustin Bird of Stirling, Amir Brandon of Toronto, Mike Chianelli of Sutton, Adam Cousins of Brussels, Lennon Daniels of Stouffville, Evan Farrell of Stouffville, Molly McNulty of Barrie, Omar Rahal of Stouffville, Dayna Reid of Elmvale, Derek Reilly of Queensville, Paige Rutledge of Oakville, Katie Sacco of Toronto, Mary Paige St. Onge of Seaforth, Celine Tellier of Chelmsford, and Evan Richard Thomas of Keswick.
\n\u201cWe have some fantastic talent that is going to do the Hoedown proud,\u201d says judge Tom Cross of Metalworks. \u201cI am always looking for the \u2018it\u2019 factor. I love people who can write, I love people who can perform, and the most important thing is you have to be entertaining \u2013 and I think we\u2019ve got that. I think we have got that in six or seven people for sure and that is just from the first audition. After we work with [the Top 10] for a week, man, who knows?\u201d
\nThe Top 20 face off in the semifinals next Saturday, August 25, which will take place at Machell Park, from 1 p.m. to approximately 4.30 p.m. at Aurora Ribfest. From Mr. Cross\u2019 perspective, this is a time for the judges to decide who they feel can really elevate their performance and how they can work with each of them to make them a winner. <\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Singers from Aurora, King, Simcoe and Dufferin counties, and from towns and cities across Ontario, will be vying for a place in the Top 10 next week in the 2018 Hoedown Showdown competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/2018-08-16-09.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5yl","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-09 12:16:25","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}