Welcome to this bonus episode of Sound Opinions. I'm Jim D. Reggottis. My co-host is Greg

Kott. And Greg, we are super excited today to announce a new scholarship prize joining the

Sound Opinions Writing Prize. This is the first year for the Sound Opinions Music Prize.

This is a donation from our friends at the Gold Schmidt Foundation that's going to go to

these three students towards their next year's tuition at Columbia College, Chicago. I haven't

met any of these students. They weren't in my classes. Gary Yerkins, my colleague over in the

Music Department at Columbia, along with some of the adjuncts. You may have heard of other people

who teach songwriting at Columbia. Mr. Rick Rizzo. And our blues friend Nick Tremulus also teach

songwriting. Oh, they chose where the contenders. You and I chose the finalists. This music blew us

away. We are going to be talking, I think, one by one. Let's introduce the winners of the first

Sound Opinions Music Prize, one by one. Well, you know, I'm just really pleased to have all of you

here. I'm always holding my breath when people ask me to evaluate music. And thankfully, I didn't have

to compromise my instincts. You know, I'm going to call it if I don't like it. And I was really

pleased with everything I heard. I thought we have three singular people here. So I appreciate you.

Going to this length to make this music. So we're here with Spencer Ball. Welcome Spencer.

Hi, thank you. We are here with Altra. How are you, Altra? Doing great.

performs as ultraviolet archer. That's right. And we have Valmaris here with us as well. Welcome.

Hello. Journey of the unknown. Great track blown away by it. Tell us a little bit about how you made it.

So I was assigned through Gary Yerkins. We had a project to do. And coincidentally, at the same time,

I had another song due for my fusion ensemble to create an original song at the same time.

So I guess I wanted to write something that was really close to me. I'm very spiritual. So I

wanted to talk about, I guess, continuing motivation and continuing optimism. So I want to speak

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