On Wednesday, Oct. 1 Molnar Recital Hall was filled with the sound of excitement and conversation as students, faculty and members of the community took their seats in anticipation of the evening’s guest. Dr. Charles Kinzer gave a thorough introduction of the evening’s guest, singer and songwriter Justin Trawick, who graduated from Longwood in 2004 and was known for being “a wonderful musician” in the music department. What was ironic about Trawick is that he did not graduate with a degree in Music, but rather a Communication Studies degree, which played a huge role in how he became who he is today.
Trawick opened the evening with a performance of his song “Starting Over,” which he wrote in 2008 after being laid off from his company. He then went into explaining his involvement in the music department during his time here at Longwood, where he was a member of Phi Mu Alpha, played saxophone in both Jazz Ensembles and competed in Battle of the Bands and won. Trawick commented, “Songwriting comes naturally to me and I don’t treat it like the last job I had,” while explaining the circumstances that led him to become a songwriter.
Trawick not only travels for solo performances, but founded “The 9 Songwriter Series” and co-founded a podcast entitled “The Circus Life” with recording engineer Sean Russell. Following his overview of how he became a musician, Trawick performed another song entitled “Mexico,” which he wrote mainly for guys, as they “change their life for the person they are with.” This performance was more of a story put to a musical background as it went through the life of a guy who changed everything, and then his girlfriend ran off with a guy from Mexico.
After his performance, Trawick explained how the entrepreneurial side of music came naturally and stated, “I would create my own project instead of waiting for opportunities to come along.” This led him to create his own band, as well as “The 9 Songwriters Series.” Along with the podcast and series, Trawick’s side project is touring the East Coast and promoting his own music that can be purchased on Itunes or viewed on YouTube. Trawick followed this with another song called, “All the Places that I’ve Been,” which he later acknowledged that he won an award for this song at the Washington Area Music Awards. To Trawick, winning the award was his greatest accomplishment because “his peers voted the song to win.”
Trawick then discussed about how to find his music and about how his performances are always different each night so that fans keep coming back for more. Afterwards, he performed his song “Brick by Brick” that was in collaboration with Flex Matthews and gave a twist to the evening’s performance. This performance led Trawick to bring his girlfriend Casey Gill to the stage and she did her own rendition of the rap from “Wannabe” by the Spice Girls. This lead to a transition from Trawick only singing, to incorporating songs that the two of them perform on the podcast.
After introducing Gill, Trawick went into giving advice to the crowd on how to “jumpstart themselves” and “make your own success,” just like he had to do to get where he is today. Trawick jumped around in topics after every song, but commented, “I’ve never really spoken in front of this many people before about my music,” which would explain why he brought up different topics. He then preceded to sing three more songs with Gill that they recorded as part of “The Circus Life” podcast. Trawick then opened the floor for questions that students may have and expressed his thanks for being able to come back to Longwood.
Trawick was a part of the second Guest Forum sponsored by the Office of the President and the Longwood Music Department. Before performing his last song of the night, Trawick was presented with a Longwood Music Department t-shirt and a round of applause for both his music and influential advice.
