Maggie Cubillos: My favorite album of all time has to be 'The Blessed Unrest' by one of my biggest inspirations Sara Bareilles.

(Epic)

I remember growing up my voice teacher was a huge Sara Bareilles fan and assigned me a few of her songs to sing such as 'Between The Lines' and 'Gravity'. Me being I think 10 years old (?) at the time I don't think I really understood a lot of the things she was singing about in her songs, but I knew something about it resonated with me. The emotion in her voice when she sang was so inspiring to younger me and was something I wanted to emulate.

When 'The Blessed Unrest' came out in 2013 I was 12 years old. I remember hearing one of the tracks 'Manhattan' and thinking about how I wanted to make music that made me feel the way that song had made me feel. Throughout my years after that, as I continued to develop my artistry and my voice, I have always found my way back to that song and album through different points of my life, and I see a lot of what I love about Sara Bareilles and her music in my own.

In 2019 I decided to use my favorite song 'Manhattan' for my college auditions. Specifically I remember singing it in my audition for Berklee College of Music which is where I am currently attending and graduating from next year. That whole album was a sort of soundtrack to my high school experience so it felt very authentic to me to perform it. The song 'Manhattan' ended up taking on a whole new meaning for me when I decided to go to Berklee in Boston. I was leaving behind so many people and places I loved to move across the country to do the one thing I loved most. This song summed up a lot of those emotions I was feeling after singing it at my audition, and I eventually sang it for my music placement once at school.

Sara's lyrics are so impactful and such a focal point in her music, which I believe, has inspired me a lot in my own writing. The way you can feel her emotions in her songs is so inspiring and I love how everything she does musically feels so intentional. It wasn't until I got to college that I started writing my own music and I can see little pieces of Sara Bareilles in the way that I write. I think finding her music at such a young age really helped shape me into the musician I always wanted to be and she will continue to be one of my biggest inspirations.