{"id":24573,"date":"2019-08-29T17:02:59","date_gmt":"2019-08-29T21:02:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=24573"},"modified":"2019-08-29T17:03:09","modified_gmt":"2019-08-29T21:03:09","slug":"hoedown-showdown-finalists-named-at-town-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/hoedown-showdown-finalists-named-at-town-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Hoedown Showdown finalists named at Town Park"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

Local country music lovers proved a hardy bunch last week\nas they braved the rain to see Canada\u2019s next country star move onto the next\nlevel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Wednesday, Aurora\u2019s Concerts in the Park summer series\nwas handed over to the Top 20 semi-finalists vying for the crown in the 2019\nHoedown Showdown talent competition. Representing communities from across\nOntario, contestants, who had passed through the audition process earlier this\nmonth, entertained an enthusiastic crowd of nearly 500 fans at Town Park with\ncountry music selections, ranging from the classics to modern country pop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wowing the judges \u2013 previous winner Mac Shepherd,\nphilanthropist and television personality Joan Kelley Walker, and Magna\u2019s Steve\nHinder \u2013 the first 19 contestants played to enthusiastic crowds and relatively\nfriendly skies. Come the final contestant, however, Mother Nature brought on\nthe rain and lightning and the concert took on a more intimate feel when, as judges\nretired to deliberate, crowds gathered under the shelter of the bandshell for\nan acoustic performance from 2017 winner John Anderson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once they emerged, the judges\nrendered their decision. The Top 10 Contestants who will face off in the finals\nat the 2019 Magna Hoedown on Friday, September 13 are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dustin Bird (Stirling)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sarah Campbell Mills\n(Burlington)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evan Farrell\n(Whitchurch-Stouffville)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Annie H. (St. Catherines)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dayna Reid (Elmvale)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Derek Reilly (Queensville)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Katie Sacco (Toronto)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hannah Thomas (Stratford)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jacqui Verellen (Toronto)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dylan Wallace (Holland Landing)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are so many impressive\nperformers, and honestly, this was the toughest one ever to go from 20\ncontestants to ten,\u201d Ms. Kelley Walker told The Auroran as the on-stage jam\nsession continued. \u201cEveryone had something that made themselves sparkle and\nshine, so it was really difficult. The ten we picked will be just so great on\nthat stage. Some of them are [returning] and for some of them it will be their\nfirst time and they are getting all this coaching and mentoring (in the lead up\nto September 13). Tonight, we were listening for potential, we were listening\nfor confidence and, of course, the voice is the primary thing. It is going to\nbe exceptional.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Ms. Kelley Walker, it all\ncomes down to \u201ccomfort, personality, and making the songs as personal as they\ncan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey can take on any iconic\nsong, but just perform it as if they have written it themselves,\u201d she said.\n\u201cThat\u2019s what really speaks to me when I am listening and I think that\u2019s what\u2019s\ngoing to win a competition like this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s what made 16-year-old\nHannah Thomas stand out from the crowd when she stepped up to perform I Will\nAlways Love You, the country standard written by Dolly Parton and given a\ncompletely different spin by Whitney Huston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is the first time I am\nseeing you and when I heard that was your song choice, I thought it could go in\na lot of different directions,\u201d Ms. Kelley Walker told Hannah following her\nperformance. \u201cBut, honestly, I got goosebumps. We were all sitting here waiting\nfor the key change and you just totally nailed it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dayna Reid, who has previously\ncompeted in the competition, was another contestant who tackled a classic,\nputting her own spin on Garth Brooks\u2019 Thunder Rolls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought I would go out of my\ncomfort zone and try something new,\u201d Dayna told judges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was nothing\nuncomfortable about that,\u201d replied Mr. Hinder. \u201cYou had the audience in your\nhand up there. You\u2019re so versatile. You had us all in a bit of a coma here and\nthen, all of a sudden, boom! Watching you grow, as we have seen you now over a\ncouple of years, it is really cool. It\u2019s cool to see that you take what you\nheard and what you learned. You\u2019re working on it and just getting better and\nbetter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Choosing a song off the beaten\npath was mom-of-two Annie H., who tried her hand at Jessica Mitchell\u2019s Grown Up\nThings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of my absolute favourite\nthings about country music is storytelling,\u201d she told the judges. \u201cI absolutely\nlove music that is raw, real and honest. In particular, this song talks about\ntime and how, as we grow older, time goes by really quickly and we learn the\nimportance of focusing on things that matter in our lives, especially the\npeople that we love.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This aspect of storytelling\nstruck a chord with Mac Shepherd who praised Annie for the way she conveyed the\nlyrics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy big thing about story songs\nis pronunciation,\u201d he said. \u201cWe could understand every single word that you\nsang and that is something I love, especially with a song like this where the\nstory is so important. The other thing with pronunciation when it comes to\nsinging is sometimes you lose emotion \u2013 but you didn\u2019t lose that emotion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To see the Top 10 sing it out\nafter mentorship week and take that final step towards the 2019 Hoedown\nShowdown crown, come out to the Magna Corral on Friday, September 13. For more\ninformation on this year\u2019s Magna Hoedown, visit www.hoedown.ca<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Local country music lovers proved a hardy bunch last week as they braved the rain to see Canada\u2019s next country star move onto the next level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24574,"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_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-24573","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\/2019\/08\/2019-08-28-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6ol","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-30 10:38:36","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\/24573","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=24573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}