Hopes of a music career for scholarship recipient

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 11: Recipient of Chewstick Foundation’s Mary Prince Scholarship Yesha Townsend said the award will help her to follow her dreams.

Ms Townsend, a Music Composition student at the McNally Smith College of Music in Minnesota, collected her $1,000 award at the charity’s 9th anniversary concert at City Hall on Saturday.

The 24-year-old, who recently published her first book of poetry The W(r)ite of Passage and is currently working on a mix-tape, told the Bermuda Sun: “I would love to compose music for film and produce music for artists. Right now my focus is in lyricism so I’d like to write lyrics for others.”

What made the win even more poignant is that she won the award in the run up to the fifth anniversary of her mother’s death. “It was really hard because it was really quick — she had an aneurysm and it was within days,” she explained.

“I kind of had to be jolted into reality really quick.

“She was a single parent so I was really dependent on her throughout my life and then I had to do everything by myself.

“Having these organizations support the arts is so wonderful because we as artists only have a handful of scholarships anyway. I couldn’t do anything else — this is my life.”

Chewstick founder Gavin Smith added: “We’ve always been impressed by Yesha’s prowess on the mic — the fact that she crosses different disciplines and the fact that she demonstrated the need. We wanted to give it to someone who would put it towards their evolution.

“From seeing her projects grow from her recent book release to her upcoming mix-tape to her new band work to just hearing her poetry live — she is head and shoulders above a lot of her contemporaries and she is really following her dreams and we have big hopes for her.

“She has also demonstrated a real appreciation for the organization and has come back and worked with some of the youngsters who have come behind her.”

Ms Townsend is currently trying out for the trials for the Minnesota National Poetry Slam Team.