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 WAUKESHA
- Stephanie Erin Brill has been a pianist since the first grade
and a songwriter since fourth grade. She has more than 20 original
songs and a Wisconsin Area Music Industry Rising Star nomination.
She has even performed on the “Morning Blend.”
And she is
only 15 years old.
Brill will be
performing Friday Night at Waukesha’s Freeman Friday Night Live
at the Waukesha Civic Theatre stage.
The Cedarburg
native did not come from a musical family, but she started taking
piano in the first grade and eventually went on to study music
theory and songwriting with Angie Mack Reilly at the North Shore
Academy of the Arts in Grafton.
“Sometimes,
one side of the family will fight over who gave me the music
genes,” Brill said.
When Brill
started writing songs, her instructor encouraged her to keep
writing and helped her to write 10 songs over the summer and make
a CD out of them.
Since then,
Brill made another three-song extended play and is working on her
first studio recorded set of 10 songs that will be released in two
separate EPs by the end of the summer. Some of her musical
influences include Regina Spektor, Paul McCartney and the Avett
Brothers.
Brill uses
songwriting as a form of expression for her feelings or problems,
as well as problems in the lives of those around her.
“I take my
friend’s problems or problems that are happening anywhere and
I’ll make a song out of it,” she said.
Brill credits
her song “Change” as a turning point in her songwriting.
“Change” tells the story of a man who just lost his job;
another part of the song was inspired by a friend suffering from
depression. At the time she wrote it, Brill was going through a
writer’s block, and her producer told her to write something
simple.
“It’s
super simple, and it turned out to be amazing,” Brill said. “I
was overcomplicating things the entire time.”
Brill said
time management and making a schedule are the keys to balancing
her music life and her school life at such a young age.
And her dad is
the reason Brill has such a rising career at young age.
“My dad has
helped me so much,” Brill said. “He just believes in me so
much and supports me so much that he’s willing to go to the
earth’s end to help me.”
The talented
young musician will perform at the Waukesha Civic Theatre, one of
the newer consistent stages this year.
Katie Danner,
the theatre’s box office supervisor and marketing director, said
the WCT offered performers for half the Fridays last year and
received an overwhelming response from musicians who wanted the
opportunity to perform at such a “fantastic venue.”
“We went
ahead and became an official stage to help draw people’s
attention to us and give these musicians the opportunity to
perform,” Danner said. “We have been offering quality live
entertainment to the Waukesha community since 1957, but there are
still residents who don’t know us.”
The Waukesha
Civic Theatre plans to offer performers from a wide variety of
genres, from jazz to country to rock to an acoustic duo, to
reflect support for all arts.
“My favorite
part of FFNL is seeing the community come together, finding old
friends unexpectedly and discovering new places downtown,”
Danner said. “I love having new patrons walk in ‘just to check
us out’ because they were walking by and stopped to listen to
the performers in front of the theatre.”
Brill will
perform many of her own original songs and possibly some
contemporary and classic cover songs Friday night.
“My tip-top
goal is to become a really well-known singer-songwriter-performer,
but I definitely want to make a career out of just writing my own
music and performing it and telling people stories,” Brill said.
“And I just want people to be able to relate to my music.”
Hear samples
of Brill’s music at www.stephanieerinbrill.com.
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