The annual Ravenna Rocks concert series has added a new wrinkle to the popular summer event. The event will feature the first ever Voice of Ravenna competition which will occur at the West Main Street Winery & Brewery on Aug. 9 at 2 p.m.
“It is basically kind of a mix between The Voice and American Idol in a way,” Ravenna Rocks’ Board Member Fallon Schwab-Davis aka DJ Krooze told The Weekly Villager on July 3. “We wanted the community to feel like a rockstar. Why let the ones that got booked and are getting paid to be the only rock stars.”
After two rounds of auditions and callbacks, nine individuals will compete for the honor to become the first winner of The Voice of Ravenna. Each artist will perform two songs at the competition on Aug. 9 and then the audience will vote on which artist they liked the most.
According to Schwab-Davis, the winner will be awarded a trophy and bragging rights, being crowned the first victor and also have the chance to join the Ravenna Rocks Board next summer to help with the planning of next year’s competition and present their successor with the next trophy.
Schwab-Davis added that the nine artists not only hail from Ravenna but around Portage County and other neighboring counties. as well.
“Why just contain and shorten our window of talent to just Ravenna where we can invite other cities into our town to show them what we have and build a relationship bringing more people to Main Street and combining communities,” Schwab-Davis noted.
In addition to the nine artists who will perform, the annual Concert will also feature the hard rock band TRUSS, which will perform as a headliner before and during the event; they will perform during a brief intermission.
The nine artists who are performing are singing and, in some cases, playing not only cover songs but also original songs that they wrote. Schwab-Davis lauded the creativity of the first crop of contestants in the Voice of Ravenna’s inaugural years.
“I was actually surprised with how many people came out and auditioned with their original songs,” she said. “With that, it can be tricky just because our society today is so used to having and hearing something familiar. They want to sing along. But we had a couple of people come out with original songs to audition and some of them went well.”
Schwab-Davis said that the Ravenna Rocks Board had brainstormed several ideas on how to get the community more involved with the annual summer music event and eventually decided on holding a singing competition that mirrors the style of the nationally recognized singing competition American Idol and The Voice. All members of the Ravenna Rocks Board are local community volunteers.
Schwab-Davis said that through two rounds of auditions, the Board viewed and listened to pre-recorded performances of aspiring contestants. Four artists were then selected to automatically advance to the main event in August while a select few received a callback for the Board to have a second look at them.
“We picked a good handful of people that were super talented that we wanted to see more of; either we were on the fence. Was it their song choice or were they off tonight? Let us see more, let us not cut them out tonight,” Schwab-Davis said.
Of the nine artists that are competing, Schwab-Davis said that they were a diverse mix of competitors, with the youngest being a student at Ravenna High School while several other contestants were older.
Schwab-Davis said that Voice of Ravenna will not only allow for more local participation but allow Ravenna to further represent its strongest qualities, especially to visitors who hail from outside of Ravenna either participating or coming to root for their loved ones.
“I really think that not only is this concert and this specific event showing what the Ravenna community can be capable of, not only in planning events but showing off what talent actually lies in the town,” she said. “We have a teacher from Rootstown that is auditioning, and we are hoping that she teaches elementary school so we are hoping that a lot of her students and families will come out to support her.”
Most importantly, Schwab-Davis said that Ravenna will display just how it celebrates not only their residents but also newcomers.
