New Jersey Stage logo
New Jersey Stage Menu



 

Michael McDermott Wins Prestigious Tenco Award for Songwriting

originally published: 09/27/2022


Critically acclaimed singer-songwriter Michael McDermott is a 2022 winner of the prestigious Tenco Award for career songwriting, an honor that recognizes artists who have made a significant contribution to songwriting in Italy and abroad. The award, established in 1974, pays homage to the late singer-songwriter Luigi Tenco and celebrates exceptional and impactful songwriting on an international level.

McDermott is now part of a lofty winner’s circle as the Tenco Award has previously gone to luminaries in the singer-songwriter pantheon such as Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Tom Waits, Sting, Jackson Browne, Elvis Costello, Randy Newman, and David Crosby. A few international past winners include Caetano Veloso, Jacques Brel, Joan Manuel Serrat, and Milton Nascimento. McDermott will fly to Sanremo, Italy to receive the Tenco Award on October 21 during the Tenco Prize celebration that runs from October 20-22.

“There are a few times when my life felt like a waking dream,” says an elated McDermott, “when I saw my wife Heather as I stepped out of an elevator in Chicago, when I held my daughter Rain in my arms for the first time, when I read what Stephen King had written about me for the liner notes of my album, and now when I heard that I won the Tenco Award. To have my name placed alongside the hallowed company of Tenco, Waits, Mitchell, and Cohen is just so humbling. To me, this is the honor of an eternity.”

The Tenco Award puts a much-deserved crown on McDermott’s artistic career. The Chicago-based triple-threat (singer, songwriter, musician) is now a published author. His just-released memoir, Scars From Another Life, has been described as “a white-knuckle ride from small-town obscurity… from the glitter to the gutter and the long road back…McDermott’s down-and-out determination to transcend his demons is a story of the redemptive power of finding oneself in sobriety, family, and the healing salvation of song.”

Since the early ‘90s, when he released his debut album, 620 W. Surf, McDermott has steadfastly persevered to craft a creative livelihood fortified by more than a dozen studio albums and critical acclaim from Rolling Stone, The New York Times, CNN, and The Washington Post, to name a few. Even Stephen King, the master of the best-selling horror novel genre, called McDermott “possibly the greatest undiscovered rock and roll talent of the last 20 years.”




Advertise with NJ Stage for $50-$100 per month, click here for info



His latest album, St. Paul’s Boulevard, released this past spring on Pauper Sky Records, is a conceptual and autobiographical opus where McDermott introduces characters lost and found, rich and poor, young and old, and many struggling to survive on a fictional street that could exist anywhere. Recorded from August 2021 to February 2022, St. Paul’s Boulevard is the personal yet universal sonic vision of McDermott and co-producer Steven Gillis.


 

EVENT PREVIEWS

An

An Interview with Tim Palmieri of Lotus

Lotus was founded between 1998-1999 at Goshen College in Goshen, IN. Now based out of Dever, Colorado and Philadelphia, PA primarily, Lotus continues to bloom as a premiere jamtronica band for over the past 25 years. In 2021, founding member and longtime guitarist, Micheal Rempel left Lotus ushering in new guitarist, Tim Palmieri.



Bergen

Bergen County presents 2nd Annual Star-Spangled Spectacular

(RIDGEFIELD PARK, NJ) -- County Executive Jim Tedesco, the County Board of Commissioners, and the County Parks Department are excited to announce the full schedule for Bergen County's 2nd Annual Star-Spangled Spectacular on July 4, 2025 in Overpeck County Park. Musical groups Super Trans Am, Glenn Roberts Country Band, and Tempo Alegre will take the stage ahead of a performance from the New Jersey Wind Symphony.



Celebrate

Celebrate America! 'Music of the Revolution' at the Ocean County Library Brick Branch

(BRICK TOWNSHIP, NJ) -- The momentous decision by our founding fathers to emerge from colonization and establish a new nation will soon mark its 250th anniversary. In honor of this historic milestone, join us for Anne and Ridley Enslow's "Music of the American Revolution" at the Ocean County Library Brick Branch on Saturday, July 5, 2025. The event begins at 2:00pm.



Count

Count Basie Center for the Arts presents Graham Nash

(RED BANK, NJ) -- Graham Nash, two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee and founding member of both the Hollies and Crosby, Stills & Nash, will perform at Count Basie Center for the Arts on Tuesday, July 8, 2025. Nash will be joined on stage by Todd Caldwell (keyboards and vocals), Adam Minkoff (bass, drums, guitars and vocals) and Zach Djanikian (guitars, mandolin, drums and vocals), performing favorites from across his sixty-year career. Showtime is 7:30pm.



bergenPAC

bergenPAC presents Straight No Chaser - Summer: The 90's Part 2

(ENGLEWOOD, NJ) -- After a totally fly 2024 summer tour packed full of 90s boy band, pop, and R&B hits, RIAA-certified Gold a cappella group Straight No Chaser is back by popular demand with "Straight No Chaser Summer: 90s Part 2." The tour comes to Bergen Performing Arts Center (bergenPAC) on Thursday, July 8, 2025 at 7:00pm.



FEATURED EVENTS

ART | COMEDY | DANCE | FILM | MUSIC | THEATRE | COMMUNITY

To narrow results by date range, categories,
or region of New Jersey
click here for our advanced search.


John

John Lee & Friends

Thursday, July 03, 2025 @ 7:30pm
The Morris Museum Back Deck
6 Normandy Heights Road, Morristown, NJ 07960
category: music


 

Blues

Blues People with Special Guest: Jeff Levine

Saturday, July 05, 2025 @ 7:30pm
Lizzie Rose Music Room
217 E. Main Street, Tuckerton, NJ 08087
category: music


 

Straight

Straight No Chaser - Summer: The 90’s Part 2

Tuesday, July 08, 2025 @ 7:00pm
Bergen Performing Arts Center (bergenPAC)
30 North Van Brunt Street, Englewood, NJ 07631
category: music


 

Frisson

Frisson Winds

Thursday, July 10, 2025 @ 7:30pm
The Morris Museum Back Deck
6 Normandy Heights Road, Morristown, NJ 07960
category: music


 

Three

Three American Troubadours: A Tribute to James Taylor, Carly Simon, and Carole King

Thursday, July 10, 2025 @ 7:30pm
Axelrod Performing Arts Center
100 Grant Avenue, Deal Park, NJ 07723
category: music


 



Advertise with NJ Stage for $50-$100 per month, click here for info