Featured A Prairie Home Companion Show: This week, we revisit a classic from the archive, featuring one of our favorite themes: the talent contest. The talent contest show began with a bevy of subway performers from New York and grew into a nationwide competition where voting was done by the in-house audience and the listening crowd nationwide.
Many of the APHC talent shows had a theme. This show, the second annual teen talent contest, was dubbed Talent From Twelve To Twenty. Almost 300 entries flooded in from all over the country. We listened to the competitors’ recordings and narrowed the field to the six who performed that night. Listen to the show >>>
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More Information About our Talent Contest Participants:
 Pianist Drew Nugent was born and raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, claiming Blue Bell as his hometown. He attended high school at Hill Top Preparatory in Rosemont, Pennsylvania, and went on to study at Bloomsburg University in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. Growing up, he always loved music and initially played the violin. His interests soon turned to the piano, with his initial interest in ragtime and Scott Joplin. Later, he became hooked on Louis Armstrong, after watching the Ken Burns PBS jazz documentary, and he bought his first trumpet soon after. Ever since, Drew has been playing old jazz classics. Influences also include Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller, James P. Johnson, Earl Hines, and many other jazz greats.
Listen to a song >>>  Andrew Fenner came to APHC from Columbia, Maryland. He began studying guitar at age seven and picked up piano a few years later. By age nine, he was composing for the piano. Among his influences: The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, and Elton John. His longtime interest in math led to work as a math tutor at Howard Community College, where he took courses starting at age 14. Following his appearance on A Prairie Home Companion, he studied engineering and mathematics at the University of Maryland. Also a self-taught juggler, Andrew was known to entertain others with his juggling at family gatherings and churches.
Listen to a song >>>  Lilly Wolfson grew up in Clifton Park, New York, and earned a degree in music from Stanford University. She began playing piano at age six and started singing in third grade — wrote her first song for piano and voice at age 12. She worked as an accompanist for a summer theater camp and as a dinner-hour pianist for Sargo’s Restaurant at the Saratoga National Golf Club. She also taught beginner piano lessons. During her senior year of high school, Lilly completed her first CD project, titled Waiting for Someday. It included 10 songs that she had written and performed, with one written when she was only 14. She went on to form a synth-pop duo with Alex Neuhausen, whom she met while studying at Stanford.
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 Ben Walden and Travis Hasko-Young, friends from Moscow, Idaho, were a harmonica and guitar duo on the Prairie Home show. Ben always loved all types of music, and started playing the harmonica at the age of six, as he traveled in an RV on a family vacation from Duluth, Minnesota, to Madison, Wisconsin. He composed many songs, the first being “I Like Elephants” at age five. In 2003, Ben took second place in the adult diatonic division and first place in the “Crowd Pleaser” category in a harmonica festival in Yellowpine, Idaho, and placed first in the woodwind category of the junior division of the 2004 Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival. Ben offered his musical skills at church events, taught harmonica lessons, and has studied the history of blues and the lives of blues performers. He went on to play music in bands including Gorman, The Sultry Swines, and Habrok. Guitarist Travis Hasko-Young feels that he owes much to his love of music. He played in a Moscow, Idaho, cover band for two years, sat in with other musicians in studio projects, and created his own songs. He also set his sights on learning to play other instruments, including piano, clarinet, and drums.
Listen to a song >>>  Stage Fright Remedy came to APHC from Niles, Michigan — a folk-pop duo made up of siblings Rachel and Taylor Clark. At the time Rachel was a sophomore at Western Michigan University and Taylor was a junior at Niles High School. They grew up surrounded by music — Taylor started playing the djembe, an African hand drum, with his father’s band when he was 12 and Rachel ran sound on occasion. As the years progressed, they became interested in songwriting, composing, and performing their own material and playing at clubs and coffeehouses throughout the Midwest. They named their duo Stage Fright Remedy at the suggestion of another musician who observed that Taylor was Rachel’s remedy for her stage fright.
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 Country/bluegrass group The Lovell Sisters Band, of Calhoun, Georgia, was made up of Jessica Lovell (violin/lead vocals), Megan Lovell (dobro), and Rebecca Lovell (mandolin), plus Joshua Miller (banjo/guitar) and Jess Holloway (bass). At the time, Jessica was a junior pre-medical student at Shorter College in Rome, Georgia. She began studying classical violin at age five, and became interested in bluegrass music after being asked to play at a local folk festival. Megan Lovell was an independent high school student with the University of Arizona, and had studied classical violin and piano for more than 10 years. After hearing Jerry Douglas and Rob Ickes, she largely abandoned these instruments to pursue a passionate interest in the resophonic guitar. Rebecca Lovell was also an independent high school student with the University of Arizona, and had studied classical violin and piano, but, like her sisters, she strayed from the classical fold to become a mandolin player. When they weren’t making music, the dog-loving sisters raised and showed Rhodesian ridgebacks.
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