Yale freshman Sarah Solovay ’16 is perhaps the University’s newest singing sensation. Though the talented singer did not win the Hitlab Emerging Artist Competition, she still made the final round in the national competition that would have given her the chance to perform at a Grammys Weekend event in Los Angeles, Calif., and to attend the awards ceremony on Feb. 10.
Solovay has a number of accomplishments under her belt: In 2008, she won the New York Songwriters Circle “Young Songwriters Award,” and she has had her music featured on CBS’s “90210” and NBC’s “Outlaw.” Hear some of her thoughts below:
Q: How did you get started as a musician, and how long have you been performing?
I guess I got started as a musician when I was 6 years old and I started playing guitar. When I was 9, I started writing, and when I was 13, I started going to open mic nights in New York. I guess it all spiraled from there.
Q: How would you describe your music?
I’d describe it as a kind of meeting point between pop music, rock music and singer-songwriter acoustic-type music. It’s mostly about relationships that I’ve been in or witnessed firsthand. I steal a lot of inspiration from my friends’ lives, and I like to mostly write about true things but sometimes I’ll imagine.
Q: What’s it like being a musician here at Yale?
I love being a musician at Yale because Yale’s performing community is so big and so diverse, so it’s a real treat. But at the same time it’s kind of manageable because you can meet most people who are involved in the community, so it’s sort of the perfect size and perfect intensity for my sensibilities.