Maguire moves on to next level
Local musician makes contest’s top 100
Stardom is a little closer for a local musician who has advanced to the next round of a national songwriters’ competition.
Clare Maguire, of Bible Hill, got a surprise Thursday afternoon when she found out she had made the second round of CBC’S Searchlight 2018 contest, joining 99 other musicians from across Canada for the second round of voting.
“I was actually in choir practice when I found out,” said Maguire.
“All my friends were asking me if I knew how it went. I finally saw the results right when we were about to sing, so I had to keep myself together for about an hour or so. It was all a bit hectic.”
Along with six other Nova Scotian entries, Maguire’s song Rosemary & Thyme is now up for a chance to make the top-10 list, five of which will be selected by popular vote.
“I didn’t expect to get this far at all, so it feels significantly more real,” she said.
“I don’t know how I feel going forward. For the first round, I had to be top 50 for popular vote, but now I need to be top five out of 100. It’s sort of better odds percentage-wise, but on the other side, I may have only been number 50 for popular vote, I honestly have no idea.”
Outside of winning by votes, her other option is to be one of the five artists selected by judges, who will make up the other half of round three’s top 10; but Maguire has her doubts of that happening.
“I think they have already chosen their best bets for the judging selection,” she said.
“They had a top 10 for Searchlight, and it seemed like they were all professional musicians with studio-quality recording. It would be incredible and ridiculous if I made the top 10 for round three, but we will see. Anything can happen.”
Voting for round two is open until Thursday, March 8, and songs can be voted on once a day.
Maguire’s song Rosemary & Thyme’ can be found at www.cbcmusic.ca/searchlight/3954.