Taylor Fagins, B.A. '17, Wins 1st Place in the American Songwriters Contest

Excerpt from American Songwriter
by Jacob Uitti

"Fagins grew up in southern California and attended the University of California at Irvine, studying drama and musical theater. He moved to New York City for its plethora of stories, diversity and myriad faces, and he now works with two different churches, writing music for one and spearheading community engagement for another.

Fagins grew up surrounded by music. His grandmother, who played the piano every night before she went to sleep, sang in the church choir. His mother played music in the car all the time; as a youngster, Fagins would borrow his mother’s albums, diving deeply into them. At age 9, Fagins announced that he wanted to do an impression at the next family reunion.

“I thought I was a good actor,” Fagins says. “So, I wanted to do an impression of Celine Dion but my mom was like, ‘That’s not an impression. That’s singing and you’re doing it really, really well.’ That’s when music hit me. Like, ‘Oh, I can sing!’”

Fagins, now 25, has been honing his velvety voice since his days in high school choir. He participated in sports growing up, including a short stint on the football team, playing left tackle. But it wasn’t until his parents split around Christmastime eight years ago that Fagins really dove into his gifts of writing and performance. As he found himself having to spend more time taking care of his younger siblings and navigating new, complicated personal emotions, each journal entry he wrote became a song."

Read the full story at americansongwriter.com here.

Read a related story and view the music video here.