Bestor makes local stop looking for the best
Kurt Bestor came to Logan looking for the best new singer, wrapping up his state-wide search with auditions Thursday in the TSC Auditorium.
“If one’s going to do an end-to-end competition of singers in Utah and you start in St. George, you better end in Logan,” Bestor said.
His second year coming to Logan for his annual singing competition, Bestor said he chose to expand his search to include a stop in Cache Valley because the area has always been known for having great singers and musicians. Some of the singers he heard Thursday, he said, had a very good chance of being one of three finalists to appear with him live on KSL’s Studio 5 morning show on Nov. 26.
The winner of Bestor’s Best Singer Search 2008 will be announced live on the show and will then perform at Bestor’s 20th Anniversary Holiday Show, singing a song specifically arranged for the winner by Bestor, and have an opportunity to speak with professionals in the recording industry in Los Angles, according to his Web site.
The finalists were decided after the last of the auditions Thursday evening, receiving e-mail notification with instructions for next Wednesday’s televised showdown. However, the names of the finalists were not available at press time.
The event was organized largely by USU public relations students as a final project, said Craig Morris, senior in public relations and one of the organizers of the project.
Of all the options offered for the final project, this was the only one using a real event and a real company, as opposed to fictionalized clients, he said, so he jumped at the chance for real-life experience.
“It’s fun to be involved in something that’s really happening,” Morris said.
The hardest part of the project, he said, was having to work through so many different ranks of authority. Not only did they have to work with the university and their professor, but also with Bestor’s own PR firm, Fruition, he said. Jumping through so many hoops was stressful but also a good educational experience, he said.
“It was kind of a learning curve for us,” he said.
The group wrote up a press release, made and posted fliers, and visited all of the schools in the valley, he said, just trying to get the word out. Their biggest goal was to increase the amount of people involved in the audition, hoping to improve, Morris said, on last year’s relatively low turnout. They wanted to get people out not only to sing but to listen, as well, he said, to create more energy in the audition environment. He said they hoped to get about 100 people out to sing.
One of the hopefuls who auditioned was Ali Travino, undeclared freshman. She read about the competition in the newspaper and thought it would be a neat new experience, she said. She was nervous at first, she said, but was soon comfortable because it was such a relaxed environment.
“(Bestor is) certainly phenomenal but not one of those guys who gets after you,” she said. “He’s a really relaxed, laid-back, nice guy.”
She said the best part was just getting out of her comfort zone and singing again, something she hasn’t really done since high school, she said, and she thought she did OK.
Bestor said he was pleasantly surprised by some of the singers he had heard throughout the day, making the trip to Logan well worth it. The biggest thing he found among many singers, though, he said, was that their performance stopped with them singing.
“People don’t know how to perform,” he said. “I’ll hear a nice voice but then I’ll look up and their hands are in their pockets. What sets singers apart is how they present themselves, how they sing it from the soul. They need to sell it.”
Presentation is what separates the amature good singers from the professional good singers, he said. Presentation was David Archuleta’s biggest problem when competing in “American Idol,” Bestor said.
The audience can tell when a singer is singing it from the soul or when they are just going through the motions, he said.
“I can’t explain it,” he said. “Some have it and some don’t. It’s just something that happens.”
That was the purpose of his search, he said, not only to find someone with a good voice but that something extra, that unusual secondary quality. Those singers who really perform are few and far between, he said, although he has heard a lot of really nice voices. However, even if a singer got up and sang really terribly, he said, he wouldn’t harshly criticize them or degrade them like Simon Cowell.
“If they have enough guts to stand up there, I’m going to have respect for them, even if they are really bad,” he said.
For all singers, though, regardless of their venue or even if they competed Thursday or in the future, Bestor recommends putting their soul into the song.
“Lose that inhibition and lose yourself in the song,” he said. “Lose yourself and the audience will appreciate it.”
–lisa.m.christensen@aggiemail.usu.edu