We are delighted to announce that Lydiah Dola won the $1,000 first prize in the SWAN Day Song Contest for her song SWAN Girls.

Dola is a composer, singer, guitarist, and a social activist born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya, who uses her voice and power for social and environmental change.

Dola knows a lot about Support Women Artists Now Day because she has performed regularly for the past ten years at SWAN Day Kenya, which is one of our most ambitious and enthusiastic SWAN festivals every year.

Perhaps that is why she was able to capture the spirit of SWAN Day so perfectly in her lyrics:

From Africa to Asia, Europe and Australia
America and everybody celebrate
Our diversity, our prosperity
Our unity, our creativity

We were hoping to create songs that people could sing at SWAN events, and Lydiah Dola will be performing her winning song at SWAN Day Kenya this year.  She will be sending us the video so that we can all see the song in action. Meanwhile, you can listen to the audio version of SWAN Girls and some of her other songs on her Reverbnation page>>

Additional SWAN Day Song Contest Winners

Thanks so much to everyone who submitted a song to the SWAN Day Song Contest. We had 175 entries, and it was a very moving experience to listen to so many wonderful women’s voices. WomenArts Executive Director Martha Richards, in consultation with composer Mary Watkins, picked the winners, and the choices were very difficult.

We were specifically looking for songs about women artists or SWAN Day, and all of our top winners wrote songs specifically for the contest. Jennifer Hill, who organizes SWAN Day Connecticut, won the $500 second prize, and the three third prizes of $250 each went to Renee Anderson of Washington, DC; Ellia Bisker of Brooklyn, NY; and Dr. Amelia Kemp of Tallahassee, FL.

There were also many songs that we fell in love with even though they did not fit our guidelines.  We could not create awards for all of them, but we decided to add nine Honorable Mention prizes of $100 each.  We awarded those to Melanie DeMore of Oakland, CA; Eva Gonzalez of Los Angeles, CA; Melissa Gordon of Astoria, NY; Colleen Kattau of Cortland, NY; Laura Love of Twisp, WA; Heather Mae of Washington, DC; Sari Miller and Jessica Ritter of Skokie, IL; Rebecca Roudman of Novato, CA; and Zoe Sarnak of New York, NY.

The artists are working on video versions of their songs, and in the coming weeks, we will be sharing the videos as well as more information about each artist.  We hope you enjoy the songs as much as we do!