Written By Kimberly Liddick-Byrnes
Carroll County boasts a strong country music scene. Several bars offer live local talent on weekends, and there are frequent performances at community fairs and events like Fall Fest and the Maryland Wine Festival.
The county has also produced country singers who are making their way in the big time. We talked to three:
Alexia Van Horn is a 2005 graduate of North Carroll High School. During the summer of her sophomore year at Towson University, she traveled to Alabama to try out for TV’s American Idol. After advancing through several tryouts, she got to perform at the Orpheum Theatre before getting cut. Although Van Horn had been performing for many years at community and private events, she said that her experience with American Idol solidified her desire to pursue a singing career.
“I learned at the American Idol competition that you have to be able to perform under pressure and stay positive,” she said. “It’s all about confidence. Sometimes being scared can affect how you perform. I was in the final 100 contestants out of 100,000 auditions, so I’m pretty proud of that.”
This past summer, Van Horn completed internships at two publishing houses on Music Row in Nashville: Blacktop and RPM. She plans to graduate from Towson this spring with a degree in Mass Communications and then move to Nashville to focus on her singing career.
“Country music is about real people and life. Nashville is centered around songwriters because country music tells a story,” she said. “It’s real. That is why I love it, that is why fans are so devoted to this genre.”
Inspired by jazz singer Eva Cassidy and country singers Martina McBride and Faith Hill, Van Horn said that Carroll County has a very supportive fan base for country music.
“There is lots of active country singing and playing in Carroll County, from bluegrass at the Farm Museum to local artists performing at carnivals and fairs” said Van Horn. “Country music is evolving and draws large groups of people. Today there is a large range of fans because country (music) is converging with other genres.”
Van Horn recorded seven songs in Nashville last summer and is working to finish her album in the coming months. She said that she is currently developing her career, which includes getting her music and style together so that she can start pitching herself to labels.
Ashley Marie Szymanski grew up in Union Mills and graduated from Westminster High School in 2000. She said that she always enjoyed singing and performing but was introduced to her solo career at age 9 when technical difficulties at the 4H fair forced her to sing by herself, with no music. By the time she was 13, Ashley Marie, as she became known, was opening for Martina McBride and a few years after that, the Dixie Chicks and Charlie Daniels.
She said that she listened to and performed nothing but country until high school. There she started exploring other genres and styles, first older music like Johnny Cash, and then classic rock like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and other “rocky stuff.” She said that “country just got too poppy”.
Szymanski majored in music at McDaniel College and believes that it was there that she was able to expand by experimenting with so many different types of music and sounds. She took a roots music class and started to listen to all kinds of music, but was really fascinated by blues and jazz. She graduated in 2004 and eventually found her way to a corporate job in Frederick, not related to music.
Singing and performing have remained a large part of her life, keeping her busy on weekends with traveling and shows. For the past several years, she has been the lead singer for Vinyl Rhino, a band playing cover songs, or renditions of other people’s songs, from the past four decades.
“The problem with covers is that singing other people’s music means people aren’t singing to my music,” she explained. She hopes to be able to write and perform her own music eventually. Although she said she has always written music, she admits that it was just too hard to do any writing when she was so busy learning covers and performing all the time.
This past July, Vinyl Rhino called it quits, and even though Szymanski said that she “misses it like crazy,” she also said that she is trying to spend some time writing music with her fianc Danny Miles, also a musician.
As Szymanski plans her wedding and looks ahead to sharing a life with someone and raising a family, she said that she is finding her way back to country music.
“Maybe I’m more country now.” she said. “I’m 25, I’m getting married. Maybe my idea of a good song has changed as my idea of a good time has changed. In college, everything was fast and heavy. Now I want to come home, relax, watch a movie. Maybe now I can relate to country music more, so many of the songs are talking about love, life and family.
“I stopped performing country when it got too poppy, but now it’s starting to appeal to me again. I love Taylor Swift and and my fianc and I can both rock out to Brad Paisley. I think the singer-songwriters are getting popular now, whereas before anyone who could hold a tune was considered good.”
Laura Bryna, a 1996 graduate of the Glenelg Country School in Howard County, lives in Nashville and has embarked upon a successful career as singer-songwriter. Growing up in Mt. Airy, Laura said that she is who she is because of her experiences growing up in this rural area.
“I love country music, what it’s all about, the legends are so real,” she said. “We go through so much trying to figure out who we are when being yourself is the easiest thing, it’s all about being true to yourself,” she said.
After attending Philadelphia’s University of the Arts, Bryna appeared in the Broadway-bound musical “Rasputin” and contributed to the subsequent cast recording. After college, she moved to Nashville and worked at big name publishing houses Sony Tree and Dreamworks. She signed with Equity records and in 2007 released her debut single, “I Don’t Have a Thing to Wear”. In January of this year, she released her debut album “Trying to Be Me”.
Earlier this year Bryna toured with Clint Black on his “Up Close and Personal” tour. She is currently touring military bases across the US.
Patsy Cline and Elvis Presley are two country music legends that motivate and inspire her.
“He (Elvis) did it all: singing, acting, dancing. I love how he did it his way. It’s kind of the same way I like to live my life,” she said.
Above all, Bryna said she realizes how blessed she is that she gets to do something she loves every day.
“When you love what you do and you’re living a dream, it’s a vacation all the time” she said. In addition to traveling for shows and promotions, she said she is also exploring an acting career in Los Angeles.
