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[title]It was a battle of bops, beats and ballads at this year’s Fenway’s Got Talent singing competition at Time Out Market. Five weeks, thirty-five contestants, and nine finalists…but only one act walked away with the grand prize of two weekend passes to this year’s Boston Calling music festival and the title of winner of Fenway’s Got Talent Season 3.
We caught up with this year’s winning act, Stardew—a duo made up of Berklee students Kiera and Isabella—to talk about what’s next, their musical inspirations and their showstopping finale performance.
First of all, congratulations on winning Season 3 of Fenway’s Got Talent. How did it feel to hear your name called at the finale?
Both of us feel like it’s pretty unreal, to be honest. We didn’t expect to hear our names called at all. Isabella saw the ad for the contest and we decided to enter as a way to put ourselves out there. We were excited to perform together and have a good time, and the prize sounded pretty cool. We are so grateful, and excited to go back to our first musical festival. It’s also super encouraging since music is what we love and want to do full-time someday. We still can’t believe it, but here we are.
You talked about performing together. How did you two meet?
We first met freshman year at Berklee in our college dorm. We were randomly paired as roommates for the year and immediately bonded over our love of music and performing. We started performing together and Stardew was born.
Who are your biggest musical inspirations?
We’re really inspired by all sorts of artists and genres but when it comes to who inspires our signature “Stardew Sound,” there are a few who really stand out. Kiera, for example, is really inspired by Adrianne Lenker, a singer, songwriter and guitarist who is known for her songwriting style which she describes as “transforming scars into something beautiful.” Isabella, on the other hand, is a big fan of Fleetwood Mac and the Paper Kites.
Can you tell me a little bit about your finale performance? It had the entire audience clapping along at one point, and it obviously impressed our judges.
Sure. We performed “Dog Days Are Over” by Florence and the Machine! It’s one of our favorite songs in our repertoire to perform together and we’ve used it at almost every gig we’ve ever played in Boston. It was so fun to see the audience clapping and singing along and having as much fun as we were having. The original song is always a crowd-pleasure, and we were so happy everyone enjoyed our cover, too!
Now that you’ve won the Boston Calling tickets, are there any artists you’re most excited to see play live?
We are both super excited to see Cage the Elephant and Mon Rovia perform!
Last but not least, if folks want to see you perform in Boston, where can they find you? What’s next for Stardew?
We don’t have any specific dates yet, but we busk all around Boston and play local gigs in restaurants and bars often. You can find us performing around the Boston Common, Newbury Street, local pubs and so many other places. And stay tuned—we’re in the process of recording our first single which we are excited to release this fall!
Follow Stardew on Instagram at @stardewmusic for upcoming performance dates and more!