Alumni SpotlightFebruary 2011Grace Weber,2006 YA Winner in Popular Voice and Presidential Scholar in the Arts

(Joss Stone, Diane Birch). We share a similar vision for the album and for the sound that describes my music. I can’t wait to get into the studio.”

Grace has already done two tours around the country, including playing at Summerfest and the Mendocino Music Festival, and is becoming a local favorite in her hometown of Milwaukee and New York. To see more and watch Grace's first music video for her single, "Sparrows," go to www.graceweber.com.

We recently caught up with Grace and asked her to share some insights about the the YoungArts program and the life of a singer/songwriter:

1) How has YoungArts prepared/affected your life?

YoungArts has had an incredible influence on where I am now as a singer/songwriter and I feel so grateful that I am a part of this organization. The most powerful thing YoungArts gave me was the courage to pursue a career in the arts and the confidence to believe I was going to be successful. The validation from such a well respected organization came at such a vital time for me. I was looking towards my future, wondering if I really was good enough to give my total self to this passion I knew I felt so deeply, and worrying that maybe my dreams were ununrealistic. YoungArts and the panelists in my voice discipline not only showed me that they believed in me, they showed me that my art moved them, affected them, and mattered to them. At the same time, I was surrounded by a group of the most talented peers in the country and the combined passions of all the finalists that week created one of the most inspiring and energizing environments I've ever been a part of. And to add to it, not only were my peers incredibly talented, but they were also some of the most mature and focused group of individuals I had ever met. I was around people my age who were just as driven about their art as I was and were really pursuingpursuing their dreams and actually making them come true. To see my peers creating such mature, deep, and impassioned art was the greatest encouragement and validation that let me know I was doing the right thing. It was sort of a, "we're all in this together," sort of feeling and nothing can stop us. To feel all that inspiration and reinforcement as a teenager venturing into young adulthood was so powerful and it completely solidified my path as a singer songwriter

2) How would you describe your work style?

AsAs far as songwriting goes, I love collaborating. I've actually done most of my writing over the past four years with a fellow YoungArts alumni, Julian Pollack, who I met at YoungArts week in 2006. Julian is an amazing jazz pianist and it's been a really cool journey growing as songwriters together over the years and seeing how different aspects of ourselves affect our writing and how those things change and grow over time. For me, working with other musicians allows me to explore deeper parts of a song that I may not have been able to find on my own. I love the process of pushing back and forth between another creative person and how the struggle of producing somethingsomething meaningful forces each person to not only dig within their own creative and emotional reserves, but explore those of your co-writer's too. Although sometimes a little frustrating, the outcome is always so exciting.

3) What obstacles have you faced in your professional career? How did you overcome them?

You know, I think one of the biggest obstacles a lot of people have to overcome at some point in their lives is the fear that they won't succeed. For artists, I think that fear can be even greater when you have to let yourself be vulnerable and put yourself out there for the world to judge. I've definitely faced my fair share of worrying that I wasn't good enough and that people wouldn't like what I was doing, but I knew that I needed to overcome those fears in order to keep pursuing what I love to do and in order to keep having fun with it. Completely erasing those fears and insecurities is hard and I don't think I'll ever be fully vacant of them, but I did decide at one point that I waswas going to believe in myself no matter what and that I would never let any doubts get in the way of my joy of singing, the honesty in my songwriting, and the real me. That was a hard place to come to, but getting there has allowed me to enjoy this journey a lot more.

4) Who would you like to work with?

IOh man, there are a couple people I would really love to co-write with. If I could just sit down and have a conver-sation, let alone make music, with Joni Mitchell my songwriting would probably improve ten fold just by breathing the same air as her. I look up to her poetry and music so much and she's an artist I really try to study and learn from. Getting to meet Joni Mitchell is definitely a dream. Another person I would love to work with who is main-stream today is John Mayer. His melodies are so infectious and his words are direct but poetic and I'd really like to see what his writing process is like.

Singer/songwriter Grace Weber has already made a big name for herself at the young age of 22. The Milwaukee native, who now calls New York home, has sung on the famed "Showtime at the Apollo" in Harlem, NY, at the Kennedy Center, the Ella Awards, and the Today Show. Last year, she also sang on the Oprah Winfrey Show, having been handpicked by Oprah from hundreds of thousands of entrants in a national video contest. Grace thousands of entrants in a national video contest. Grace was recently featured in Billboard Magazine as a spotlight “artist to watch” in 2010.

Grace's ear for soul music was present at a young age and continued to grow after joining the Inner City Youth Gospel Choir in Milwaukee, WI, where she performed at churches and revivals around the city. She has deftly melded those early roots in soul and gospel with a modern sensibility of some of her current favorites like Norah Jones and Adele to forge her own musical identity which she calls “Indie-Soul.” In describing her music, which she calls “Indie-Soul.” In describing her music, Grace said, “I think we dabble in a couple different genres, including pop and jazz, but at the core my music always comes back to the ‘soul.’ I tell stories through my lyrics that I hope can touch people in some way and I always try to sing from an honest place. I like to describe my music as "Indie-Soul" because it’s soul music with a quirkquirky, indie, pop/rock touch. It’s very much who I am.”

Grace is currently writing and in pre-production for her first solo album. “I am really excited to be working with Grammy award-winning producer, Mike Mangini