My name is Steve Violetti, aka “VO” and I’m one of thousands of you who love to play and write original songs.
All of us songwriting hopefuls have dreamed the same dream and have a story to tell similar to the one I’m writing here for Vision 4 Music. I was asked to document it anyway as a favor, so don’t hesitate to send V4M your experience as a musician or songwriter trying to get your song heard and hopefully published.
Vision 4 Music 2009 Song Contest
Announcing the Vision 4 Music Songwriting Contest Winner...
Mark Hildreth
With two born-deaf grandparents, Mark Hildreth was an unlikely musical prodigy. The eldest son of British parents, Mark was exposed as a child to some of the great musical legends of the sixties and seventies – Bob Seger, Elton John, Billy Joel, and John Lennon, and taught himself to sing and play piano at the age of 10.
At eighteen, Mark was accepted to one of Canada’s top arts programs, in the culture-rich city of Montreal, Quebec. They accepted 12 applicants a year – Mark was the youngest. After playing just two gigs, he was invited to showcase at Sony/BMG in New York, and signed a demo deal with Warne Livesey, the prodigious producer of Midnight Oil, Holly McNarland, The The, 54-40, and The Mathew Good Band. Having sold over 15 million records in his career to that point, Mr. Livesey knew that Mark’s first album, Complex State Of Attachment, an instantly hummable collection of pop/R&B songs rife with heart, honesty and groove, would be a success.
It was around this time that Mark’s life suddenly changed. One of his closest friends died suddenly of a drug overdose. With this momentous event, Mark discovered a new passion for an ideology behind his music and the one musician who would offer him a musical sensibility to aspire toward – Stevie Wonder. “What really gets me about Stevie is his perspective as a songwriter. He always writes from a standpoint of building love, compassion and integrity in the world and that is what I want to do with music.”
With hundreds of stage appearances under his belt, Mark Hildreth is on a mission to leave the world a better place than he found it through music. The winner of the 2006 Singer Songwriter Awards, the Billboard World Song Contest and now, the 2008 Vision 4 Music Songwriting Contest, he splits his time between Los Angeles and Vancouver, Canada. Mark has a perspective and an emotional depth that is rare in this world, and it only takes one meeting to see it. “I know that people can change, that the world can change, because I changed. And I want to share that.”
Mark's many talents also include a successful acting career. He plays Reginald Pole in the third season of the Showtime series The Tudors, starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers. The new season will air in the spring.
He is currently in the studio recording a new single called Change Of Mind, a pop/R&B a capella song. A new music video for his song, “Siddhartha”, which is on the Complex State Of Attachment album.
Mark will be playing shows coming up in Toronto, Chicago, Florida, California, and Vancouver in the coming months. His website will have all the details as they become available.
Complex State Of Attachment, and it’s first singles Magic Spell and Siddhartha, can be heard at Mark’s website, www.mark-hildreth.com, and his Myspace page, www.myspace.com/mhildreth.
