The Canadian Song Conference kicks off in Prince Edward Island today, and with it, the Canadian Songwriter Challenge.

For the past four years, Music PEI has been partnering with other provincial music industry associations to pair Island songwriters with other songwriters from across the country. The artists must then collaborate to write two songs each in two days and present and pitch them to conference delegates in a listening session.  They will also perform in concert Friday night at Trinity United Church.

This year, the pairings are:

• Reeny Smith (Nova Scotia) with Catherine MacLellan
• Shaun LB (New Brunswick) with Josh Carter
• Sean Panting (Newfoundland) with Alicia Toner
• Steph Copeland (Ontario) with Russell Louder
• Shantaia (Saskatchewan) with Danny Drouin
• Alexandria Mailot (British Columbia) with The Amanda Jackson Trio.

The challenge is part of a larger conference aimed at helping artists create multiple revenue streams for their music outside of live performance. When not writing songs, artists and their personnel will be attending workshops on topics like royalties, licensing, publishing, and broadcasting.

And if you’re wondering how it sounds when artists who might never have met before have to write songs together quickly, have a look! Here’s a video of one of last year’s pairings featuring PEI’s Meaghan Blanchard and Nova Scotia’s Gabrielle Papillon.

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