Shisha
Mount Gambier, South Australia, Australia | SELF
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Local Singer-songwriter Shisha Ashby will be heading to Canberra later this month as a finalst in the Australian National Gospel Happening Song Writing Competition.
The talented 16 yr old Mount Gambier High School student has been studying music for three years at school, with a piano scholarship under Malcolm Bromley, and turned her hand to song writing earlier this year.
Shisha's award-nonminated song "Rebel" took about a month to write, taking it from the original idea to the finished arrangement.
She even spent a solid week producing a CD of the song, complete with backing harmonies voiced by herself.
"It's all very exciting because I've only just seriously taken up singing and song writing for about a year and who knows where it will go?" Shisha said.
Her singing instructor had nothing but praise for the young composer.
"I think Shisha has a real future in the area of singing and song writing," said Mrs Walker.
"She writes from the heart and is a young woman of substance."
The Australian National Gospel Happening Song Writing Competition is an annual competition that awards original competitions in several categories.
Winners will be announced on November 27. - Border Watch
Discography
Still working on that hot first release.
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Bio
Shisha's musical beginnings started as a nine-year-old, playing a dodgy old keyboard on a sheep station in outback Queensland (180km Northeast of Longreach). There she spent the first twelve years of her life home schooling, working on the farm, and experimenting with music. One of her proudest achievements is having shorn her first sheep at the age of ten ¼ years old (beating both of her older brothers' record for their first sheep). However, due to financial reasons, the family had to leave their beloved sheep station 'Barcoorah' and head back to South Australia and their family roots.
By the age of twelve Shisha was a competent composer of numerous multi-track instrumentals (having made well over 100 of them). In 2001 at the end of grade seven she even wrote a short song that she and the rest of her level sang for their end of year graduation ceremony.
Shisha is a singer/songwriter not only for herself but for others. To date she has written three songs by special request. Two for weddings (‘With You’, ‘I Say I Do’) and the other for a farm conference about the wonderful qualities of Leucaenae trees (‘Waltzing Leucaenae’).
Recognition that Shisha has recieved includes first prize for her 'With You' film clip at the Newcastle National Video Festival, won the 'Under-18 Youth Award' two years in a row from the Australian National Gospel Happening Songwriting Competition in Canberra, (‘Rebel’ 2004, ‘Forgive & Forget’ 2005), and her song ‘Crying In The Rain’ even won a spot as a sponsor favorite in the global-wide Pacific Songwriting Competition, (2006).
Shisha's greatest desire as a musician is to produce music that heals, encourages and is also just plain good fun.
www.youtube.com/shishaashby
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