Mariam Gogorishvili, a junior at Plainview Classical Academy, won the South Plains College Creative Arts Department Fourth Annual Songwriter Competition high school division.
Mariam Gogorishvili, a junior Plainview Classical Academy foreign exchange student, recently won the South Plains College Creative Arts Department’s fourth annual Songwriter Competition in Levelland.
Gogorishvili’s journey to the competition started in a creative writing class with a poem. With the help of Caitlann Butler, a PCA music teacher, Gogorishvili began creating a melody and turned the poem into a composition.
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When the student teacher duo found out about the SPC songwriter competition, Gogorishvili recorded her song and sent it in. The first song she created for the contest had a personal feel to it that harkened back to how a loved one’s death shaped her and her family.
“The first song was about my family member who passed away in 2018, and even though it was a really long time ago his death shaped my family’s future and [present day],” Gogorishvili said. “It’s still in my mind, so I wrote a poem about him and turned it into a song.”
Gogorishvili is originally from the country of Georgia and was able to mesh some of her roots with her songwriting abilities during the contest.
“I used to go to music school. I also learned how to play guitar back home, so everything helped here, and I think I can take all the new things [I’ve learned] back home,” Gogorishvili said.
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While one of Gogorishvili’s songs was about a deceased loved one, another song she competed with was about being a “Georgia girl” from the country of Georgia.
“All together it’s really hard, but I feel like when you create something it’s part of your identity and it needs to come directly from your heart, and with that it was not easy, but also not really hard,” Gogorishvili said.
Butler said the top six finalists were chosen to perform a live show at South Plains College for a select number of judges.
“I love this contest because it highlights a career outside of school,” Butler said. “If you want to do songwriting or music, it really highlights those skills and what it takes to be successful once you’re in society and you’re outside of the classroom. You don’t necessarily have to have a degree to be successful or to have prosperity outside of school. You can have skills such as Miriam portrayed, putting songs together in melodies and lyrics and you could sell them to the right buyer, to the right musician one day and really make a great living off of that.”
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The live performance had an adult division and high school division, with Gogorishvili winning the latter March 27.
“I’ve never done anything like this,” Gogorishvili said. “I’ve never performed on a stage alone. It was really really different for me and I was nervous, but I got so much energy when I was there. I really enjoyed it. It was so exciting.”
While the nerves of performing a solo act may have been a little daunting for Gogorishvili, she said really enjoyed the experience and will continue to do it in the future. For example, Gogorishvili is still writing songs and will be performing at Old Settlers Reunion May 16 in Floydada.
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Butler, who had another student make it to the finals last year, said watching Gogorishvili win the competition was a great experience.
“Going through the experience [last year] was great, but then going through it a second time and actually having a student win just proved the excellence that what we’re doing here at PCA means something and it just gives us hope for a future of what our music department could be,” Butler said.
