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Witness the next big thing in NW music as young artists from around the region take to MoPOP’s Sky Church stage for three nights of utter glory.
Attend one — or all three!
Showcase #1
Saturday, February 25, 2023
Doors at 7:00pm / Show at 8:00pm PT
Sky Church @ MoPOP
All ages
King Zaae
Pilot Seat
defsharp
lavenderhayez
This event has passed.
Showcase #2
Saturday, March 4, 2023 Doors at 7:00pm / Show at 8:00pm PT Sky Church @ MoPOP All ages
Midpak
Zari Alexandria
Podesta
Wyatt Silva
This event has passed.
Showcase #3
Saturday, March 11, 2023 Doors at 7:00pm / Show at 8:00pm PT Sky Church @ MoPOP All ages
Stargazy Pie
Fight Milk
Cherry Ferrari
Sadie Hale
This event has passed.
Your contribution to attend these events helps support all of MoPOP's work, and programs like Sound Off! by eliminating participation fees, securing professional mentorship, and producing a first-class performance opportunity that showcases our region’s young artists.
About Sound Off!
As the premier under-21 music showcase in the Pacific Northwest, MoPOP’s Sound Off! connects young musicians with the tools and resources they need to level up their artistry and hit the ground running with their careers.
Participants receive year-round professional mentoring to guide them through the ins and outs of the industry, gathering insider knowledge, valuable community contacts, and life-changing experience as they gear up to show the world exactly what they have to say. And they unleash it all with a fully-realized live performance at our world-class venue, complete with light show, engineers, and hordes of screaming fans.
Tomorrow’s biggest artists are already grabbing the mic with MoPOP’s Sound Off! Showcase.
Midpak is a psych-funk trip consisting of Sam Holman on bass, Ben Kinney on drums, and Nik Jordan on guitar. The group has been playing all over Seattle with one intention: bring the juice.
Podesta is 21-year-old vocalist, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Alex Podesta from the San Francisco Bay Area. In June 2022, he released his debut album Until Something Changes written, performed, recorded, and produced by himself on his laptop while attending the University of Oregon. The album is a densely layered, orchestral collection of singer-songwriter based indie rock influenced by artists from various other genres, including Sigur Ros, My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth, and more.
Zari Alexandria is a 19-year-old singer-songwriter from Federal Way, WA. After performing in many choirs and diving into the musical theater field, she decided to try songwriting to further challenge her artistic abilities. Zari describes her sound as “pop with a twist” as she combines multiple genres and storytelling elements in her production and lyrics. Some of her musical influences include Adam Melchor, Lizzy McAlpine, and The Weekend. Zari’s latest EP, Congratulations, I’m Angry, demonstrates a pop project that mixes in R&B, indie, and 80s dance music with her vivid imaginative songwriting.
Wyatt Silva is a 16-year-old multi-instrumentalist singer/songwriter who wrote, recorded, and mixed his debut album Aurora in his basement in the Fall of 2021 (he recorded his drum parts at Soundhouse with recording engineer Mike Sebring). Wyatt plays all the instruments on the record. He is influenced by classic rock and enjoys referring to himself in the third person. (Hi Wyatt!)
Their live shows are full of youthful energy and no two set-lists are ever the same. Butterfly Hand Grenade, the debut album of Stargazy Pie, is a compelling mix of hard rock, pop, and bittersweet love songs, creating a vivid narrative of heartache, hope, and resolution. Stargazy Pie just released their single Angel in Summer of 2022. Currently, Stargazy Pie is working on new material that they are excited to share soon!
Fight Milk is the creative laboratory for multimedia artist and musician Jackson Leavitt. An ever-evolving sound and vision experience, Fight Milk shows entertain audiences through synchronized new wave and Zolo-inspired songs and original videos. The core of Fight Milk's repertoire — the dynamic blend of synths, drums, bass, and guitar — are all recorded by Jackson, and he's taken it to venues around Seattle, Tacoma, L.A., and Cleveland.
Two teenagers, Emma Wang and Oliver Crosby, making their way through life with music. From writing on the bedroom floor and producing in the home studio to performing in venues like Barboza & The Crocodile. Cherry Ferrari captures the youthful energy of today, taking inspiration from disco funk greats and today’s pop to make retro-futurism.
Sadie Hale is a singer/songwriter from Kirkland, WA. Her music is confessional and lyrically complex, taking inspiration from country, folk, and americana to tell stories about the world and the people who occupy it.
King Zaae is a 17-year-old Seattle-based artist who makes angsty, vulnerable music taking from variety of music genres. Some of his musical influences are funk-pop, pop-punk, rap, hyper-pop, Midwest emo and R&B. Zaae started making music early 2018, with influences from juice wrld, xxxtentacion, and hi-hop at the time. His early mixtapes like I Hate This Town and debut album Being Sad is a Cliché were made on his iPhone. He’s currently working on his new album soon dating to release.
Pilot Seat is a group of three friends with a shared passion fusing together indie/alternative pop and psychedelic rock to create a bright, clean, melodic yet raw sound. Pilot Seat has been playing together since 2021 with the goal of releasing an album, having people dig their material and growing a larger audience, and have been accumulating a strong fanbase playing shows throughout the greater Seattle area.
defsharp (they/them) is an indie-electronic artist from Tukwila, Washington who has been writing and producing their own music since 2014. In 2021, they took a step into a more indie-rock focused direction, and since then, they’ve released two projects in that vein. Touching on themes of depression, angst, and growing up, they utilize music as a means to vent and vocalize their thoughts.
lavenderhayez is an independent artist based in Seattle, WA. Meghan Hayes began releasing music under her own name in 2021 and transitioned into lavenderhayez in 2023. Her music is an emotional rollercoaster that transcends through many genres, from pop, indie, and folk, taking from their own perspective and challenges through life.
Can’t Attend?
Support MoPOP’s mission, including youth artist development programs like Sound Off!, by making a gift today.
Don’t just take our word for it…
“ Sound Off! is... an opportunity to get a lot more vested in the music community that’s around you. If there is anything that Sound Off! has done incredibly powerfully is set up young folks for finding each other and for building not just networks, but communities that define the music scene in Seattle.”
—Cameron Lavi-Jones, King Youngblood
“ As a byproduct of participating in Sound Off!, i///u was able to play the stages at Bumpershoot and NW Folklife... to have an in studio session with KEXP.... And then I think of all of the other stages – like Neumos, and Showbox. It’s been a storybook for us and we can’t be more appreciative of the MoPOP and Sound Off! team because having won gave us that a-ha moment. Like “woah, this is really cool! We should just keep playing music.” And that’s what we did.”
—Scott Elder, cofounder of i///u
Interested in being a Sound Off! artist yourself or getting involved in the program? Contact us at SoundOff@MoPOP.org.
Highlights from Sound Off!
THANKS TO OUR GENEROUS PARTNERS
A special thanks to MoPOP’s Youth Advisory Board (YAB) for their continued assistance in screening applicants and helping select performers for Sound Off! programming. YAB’s efforts allow MoPOP to empower youth visionaries by lifting up their peers.