Jessie Leov Music

News

I need your help!

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Hey all!

Been a while since I’ve been active on my website/facebook page! Many exciting things have been happening in my life. For one thing – I now study a Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Music conjoint majoring in French and Music Composition respectively. It’s pretty full on but I love it. I’m nearly halfway through my third year of university now, and have two years to go after this one.

Buuuut the big news at the moment is…. I’m going to Las Vegas in October to attend and compete at the International Sweet Adelines Convention with the Greater Auckland Chorus! GAC are the 2014 NZ Women’s Barbershop Chorus Champions and we recently sung at the Aotea Centre in May in preparation for competing in America on the international stage. This is a huge deal for me – barbershop has been a big part of my life for a long time and I’m very excited to take it further and keep pursuing these new opportunities.DanChilds_1505020770

The trip to Las Vegas has been budgeted at $4000 minimum, and unfortunately I don’t have access to that amount of money, so some major fundraising activities are being put into action! I have applied for and received a $1000 grant from the University of Auckland from the Vice Chancellors Arts Support Fund so this is a fantastic contribution which I’m really thankful for!

The Nelson Bays Harmony Chorus – my ‘mother’ chorus who I was a part of from age 13 to 19 – are very kindly organising and hosting a fundraiser evening in Nelson on July 7th at The Boathouse called ‘Las Vegas Cafe’. I’ll be doing some solo performing there along with some other special guests. We’re hoping to get as many people there as possible – there’ll be dinner and dessert provided! A great evening for friends and family to catch up, have good food and be entertained. Here’s the Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/360914837415387/.

Huge thank you to NBHC for all their support!

In addition to the evening event we have a fundraiser Give a Little page for people who would like to donate in this way: . Every dollar is SO much appreciated and helps me on my journey to the international stage!

I hope you’re all doing well – thanks so much for sticking around and reading about what’s been happening in my life at the moment!

You’ll hear from me again soon I hope :)

Jessie x

 

On the radio TWICE in a week!

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Hey everyone!

First of all, if you haven’t heard my new song ‘Vows’ please head over and have a listen here!

It was super fun to make, very hard work and took about 3 or 4 ENTIRE days to finish. It’s the first song I’ve ever fully done on Ableton so it was a learning curve but hey gotta start somewhere.

So the first exciting radio-related event happened on the 25th March, when I got a txt from a friend saying that one of my songs was playing on KIWI FM! I was pretty stoked and managed to tune in and hear the end of it – it was my song Divine from the 2012 Play it Strange Songwriting Competition CD. So that was pretty awesome!

Then just last Friday (3 days later), I was woken up by a call at 7:30am saying I was on the shortlist for the ‘Sowing the Seeds of Success’ contest and I may or may not be rung by Mike Hosking within the hour. I had applied for this the week before, just coz you know you have to do these things just on the off chance, and written a huge page long, essentially like, biography of my life relating to music. And then I listed all the musical gear and equipment that I had bought to ‘support my career’, and I listed the few items I could think of at the time that I was really really wanting to get to help me record better music. These being fancy studio headphones, a midi controller keyboard, Logic Pro and Ableton Live Suite (recording/production softwares).

So long story short, Mike called me, we talked for a bit on air, he played some of my a-capella song See You Again (!!) And then I won all the gear I’d asked for! Needless to say it took me quite a few hours to calm down and become a normal person again after this happened. The adrenaline was pumping big time. So a huge thank you to Newstalk ZB and ASB Bank! I’m just waiting on a call from the bank and then I can hopefully head out and get my gear! I’M SO VERY EXCITED!

You can listen to the interview below:

I can’t believe we’re already up to the 5th week of the semester – only a couple of weeks to go before I head home for mid-semester break. I’m so happy to be back at it though, fully immersed in the music world and spending lots of time with my amazing and talented friends in Auckland!

I will be keeping you updated with new songs, other exciting events that may occur, etc etc, throughout the year! We are off to a good start.

Oh yeah, SONG OF THE WEEK below. I am in love.

Allen Stone - Unaware (Live From His Mother's Living Room)

Peace and love,

Jessie x

 

2014 has arrived!

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Hey everyone!

2014 has arrived! Well it arrived 2 months ago… I haven’t posted in a while!

Street Gig in Jan.
Street Gig in Jan.

I have had the most fantastic summer in Nelson – spent heaps of time with my family, and earned a significant amount of money doing gigs around the place! Pretty stoked about that – I should be able to get through this year without going broke! Hurrah.

I haven’t posted any new songs on my soundcloud for ages, lazy much?! But I’ve written a few songs which have some potential over the last couple months so they should make it up there sometime. Uni starts in a fortnight so I’ll start having songs up pretty regularly like last year. EXCITEMENT.

I’m flying back up to Auckland in a few days and moving into my flat! So excited to start the 2nd year of my music degree and to see all my friends again. Last year was incredible but I’m hoping to make this one even better.

So look out for some new songs being rolled out and some updates as I settle back in to the big city.

Anyway, hope y’all are having a great summer!

Jessie x

 

 

 

 

HOME!

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Hey everyone!

Hope life is going swell for you all. I’M HOME! Semester 1 is officially over and I am back in Nelson for 3 weeks. It was a really intense last few weeks of assessments and exams but I got through it pretty good. I did keys/backing vocals for 10 people at final performances! It was exhausting but just so ridiculously fun. My mind is constantly blown at how talented and amazing everyone is. Really inspiring! Check out my youtube channel for videos of my songs and a couple of my classmates: www.youtube.com/jessieleov. Here are the two songs that I performed (the first is a studio demo and the second is live):

Still waiting for heaps of my results from tests/exams from last semester! Oh the suspense. The only papers I’ve got them all back for are 184: Music Theory and 182: Instrumental (piano lessons) for which I got A+ overall for both. Yay :D

So far this break has consisted of me being lazy and spending a lot of time snuggling with my cat. Oh and practicing songs too of course :P So happy to be home. Even though it’s absolutely freezing. But I also am going to enjoy seeing all my uni friends again in a few weeks and getting back into classes! Blessed to be doing what I love with some really awesome people.

To say goodbye until next time, here’s an original I recorded for my end of semester creative portfolio:

Love you all, thanks for your love and support of my music!

Jessie x

PS. Song of the day: Little by Little by Radiohead from their 2011 album King of Limbs. Just can’t get over it. Obsessed (with all of their albums…. XD)

Radiohead - Little By Little

 

 

 

 

University life…

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Hey everyone!

First of all, here’s a video I recently watched which I thoroughly enjoyed. Radiohead singer Thom Yorke has a project called Atoms for Peace and this is a stripped down version of their song Ingenue. Really love it.

Thom Yorke - Ingenue (Live Jonathan Ross Show)

So it’s nearly Week 10 of first semester already! Pretty crazy stuff. Time has been flying along. I am loving my course and learning so much! I can already hear my music evolving and some different sounds coming out in my songs. I’m having heaps of fun with my music friends and my friends who I live with (7th floor for the win). It still blows my mind how incredibly talented my classmates are and it’s so cool I get to jam with them all the time.

Here is one of my latest tracks written for my songwriting class. Hope you enjoying listening x

As much as I love Auckland, I can’t wait to go home to Nelson. HOME. Seriously nowhere is better than home. Holidays here we come! That is after many tests, performances and exams…. :D But overall everything is going amazingly, it’s everything I hoped for and more. Love you guys! Thanks so much for supporting me and my music x

Jessie