Rachael Kilgour

As a card-carrying member of the south Austin scene, Grace Pettis has amassed bragging rights to spare. She is the winner of many of the nation’s most prestigious songwriting contests, including NPR's Mountain Stage NewSong Contest, and has received grants from the Buddy Holly Educational Foundation. Grace’s songs have been recorded by other esteemed artists, including Sara Hickman and Ruthie Foster and she added to her songwriting accomplishments in 2019 by signing a publishing deal with BMG. Catch her with her band at an Austin club, headlining a festival with her trio Nobody's Girl, or on her own, trying out new songs in a little gem of a listening room, somewhere in America. Rachael Kilgour is a Minnesotan songwriter and singer whose lyric-driven work and intimate performances have been called both brave and humane. The 2015 grand prize winner of the NewSong Music Performance & Songwriting Competition and winner of the 2017 Kerrville New Folk Contest, she has been featured at NYC’s Lincoln Center, at The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and at the Sundance Film Festival. Married in her early twenties, Kilgour's initial work chronicled her life as a young parent in a same-sex partnership and addressed, unapologetically, the sociopolitical issues of the time. In 2014, Kilgour found solace in songwriting after a difficult divorce and family separation. She began touring nationally with her grief-inspired album, Rabbit in the Road, and followed up with a self-assured, almost hopeful set of songs on her EP Game Changer. In 2020 Kilgour was awarded a Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative Grant to focus on a songwriting project about the life and recent death of her father. Tour sponsored by NewSong Music - www.newsong-music.com