See Highlights From the 2020 Sundance ASCAP Music Cafe

The Sundance ASCAP Music Café headed into its first full week of the Sundance Film Festival with a wide array of performers representing many different musical flavors. Nashville writers included Joe Robinson, originally from Australia who is a guitar wizard and accomplished sideman for such artists as Emmylou Harris, Rodney Crowell and many more. Colter Wall, originally from Canada served up some authentic country and western songs made resonant by his deep baritone voice. And Barry Zito, a former major league baseball player who has found a new career as a singer-songwriter in Music City, played songs that have been placed with other artists and which have been featured in film and television.

LA's The Bird and the Bee brought their effervescent indie-pop to the stage and performed songs from their recent tribute to Van Halen, among originals that spanned their 15-year career. Alex Lilly, who part of the collective, also performed a set of her own electronic pop. One of LA's best kept musical secrets, Jamie Drake, delivered a stunning set of folk songs, that evoked some of her influences, including Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins and Harry Nilsson. Lizbeth Román, who flew all the way from Puerto Rico, played songs sung in English and Spanish, and delighted the audience with her charm and infectious Latin rhythms. Stephen Kellogg, a folk-rock troubadour who has released over 17 albums and has played over 2,000 concerts in over 21 countries, played a powerful set of his poetic songs. And Ryan Miller of the band Guster, who as a composer has also scored several Sundance films, including Safety Not Guaranteed, The Fundamentals of Caring and Mr. Roosevelt, played an eclectic set, including songs he wrote for films as well as Guster songs.

With two full days of music yet to go, the 2020 installment of the Sundance ASCAP Music Café had already delivered on its promise to present some of today's greatest music creators to festival audiences.

The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) is a professional membership organization of songwriters, composers and music publishers of every kind of music. ASCAP's mission is to license and promote the music of its members and foreign affiliates, obtain fair compensation for the public performance of their works and to distribute the royalties that it collects based upon those performances. ASCAP members write the world's best-loved music and ASCAP has pioneered the efficient licensing of that music to hundreds of thousands of enterprises who use it to add value to their business - from bars, restaurants and retail, to radio, TV and cable, to Internet, mobile services and more. The ASCAP license offers an efficient solution for businesses to legally perform ASCAP music while respecting the right of songwriters and composers to be paid fairly. With more than 735,000 members representing more than 11.5 million copyrighted works, ASCAP is the worldwide leader in performance royalties, service and advocacy for songwriters and composers, and the only American performing rights organization (PRO) owned and governed by its writer and publisher members.

To post a comment, you must register and login.