Clint Alphin is Telluride Troubadour Winner

Clint Alphin, a Nashville, Tennessee-based singer songwriter, won the 2017 Telluride Troubadour Competition and had the opportunity to perform a short set on the main stage during the 44th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival, a roots-oriented music festival set amid Colorado’s rugged San Juan Mountains, June 15-18.

The nationally recognized performing songwriter competition is open to anyone who writes and performs original music and who is not currently signed to a major recording or publishing deal.

Alphin was one of ten finalists chosen from among more than 300 entrants on the basis of the quality of their songs’ composition, vocal delivery and the overall presentation. After performing in two finalist rounds on the Elks Park Stage in downtown Telluride during the festival, Alphin was named the winner, awarded cash and other prizes, and performed a 15-minute main stage set on June 17.

“I’m really excited about winning this contest,” said Alphin. He noted that Telluride Troubadour is both the first major contest he’s won and, in 2013, the first one to accept him as a finalist.

Expressing gratitude for having been selected from among “so many talented artists,” Alphin notes: “Even more special was the ability to share this experience with friends like Shannon Wurst, Lauren Pratt, and Chase Gassaway, who have been fellow musical travelers and sources of inspiration and collaboration. I also felt like I got a dose of good fortune getting greetings and hugs from Anna Tivel and Caitlin Canty, the two past winners of this contest, whose music is as good and genuine as they are as people.”

Alphin noted, however, that there was “a touch of bittersweetness to my win this year, since the past two times I’ve been a finalist, my parents were in the audience.” Although they could not be at the festival this year, Alphin said “they were very excited and proud of me when I told them the news.”

Alphin, who moved to Nashville in 2003, hails from North Carolina and cites James Taylor, a fellow Tar Heel State native, as a major influence. Previously a Telluride Troubadour finalist in 2013 and 2015, Alphin also was a finalist in the 2015 Chris Austin Songwriting Contest and in the 2015 Grassy Hill Kerrville New Folk Competition. East Coast folk fans will have an opportunity to hear him this summer when he performs at the Huntington Folk Festival on Long Island, New York (Sunday, July 29) and in the Emerging Artist Showcase at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in upstate Hillsdale, NY (Friday, Aug. 4). More information on Alphin may be found online at www.clintalphin.com.

Second- to fifth-place honors at Telluride went to Heather Mae (Washington, DC), Lauren Pratt (Boston, MA), Heather Aubrey Lloyd (Baltimore, MD), and Chase Gassaway (Austin, TX), respectively.