Teresa Eggertsen Cooke

Teresa Eggertsen-Cooke nominated for Toronto music award
Parkite was one of six American artists selected

Scott Iwasaki
October 20, 2017
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(Courtesy of Teresa Eggertsen-Cooke)
Park City singer and songwriter Teresa Eggertsen-Cooke was one of six artists from the United States who were nominated for the Best U.S.A. category of the 13th Toronto Independent Music Awards.
Park City singer and songwriter Teresa Eggertsen-Cooke has some fans in Canada.

Her song "Circle" was nominated for the U.S. category of the 13th Toronto Independent Music Awards that took place last Friday.

Eggertsen-Cooke was one of six artists from the United States who were nominated for the award, she said.

"There are hundreds of people so submit songs, and [the music awards] took all the genres of the music and picked six," Eggertsen-Cooke told The Park Record. "I heard all of their songs and they were all very good."

The U.S. category nominees were Eggertsen-Cooke, Amy Guess, Brown Kid, Almond and Olive, Patrick Joseph and The Fallen Stars.

"I didn't expect to win, but the fact that I was nominated means that there is an independent music association in Canada that listens to my music," Eggertsen-Cooke said. "And that's awesome."

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"Circle" is the first song Eggertsen-Cooke ever wrote, and it appears on her 2016 album "Fooled Again."

The album can be found on Amazon.com, iTunes and her website, teresaeggertsencooke.com.

"The song is about a life experience I had 20 years ago, and I was inspired to write the song after some shows I did in New York City," she said. "One of the last shows I did there was with Road Recovery."

Road Recovery is a New York nonprofit that helps people fight addiction with the aid of entertainment industry professionals who have confronted similar challenges, according to its mission statement.

Eggertsen-Cooke contacted Salt Lake City producer Joel Back of Rigby Road Studios to help with the song's arrangement.


"This was my first song and I didn't know how to put the song together," Eggertsen-Cooke said. "He helped me with the arrangement and hook, which was important because the Toronto Independent Music Awards judge the music on playability, melody, the hook and the chorus."

She submitted the song in the spring and received an email that said the song was going to be submitted to the jury, which was comprised of industry professionals and producers.

The jury was comprised of:

Dave Henry, festival coordinator of Canadian Music Week
Carole Pope, multi-platinum award winning recording artist
Andy Hawke, manager of artists and repertoire at ole, a rights management company
Hill Kourkoutis, musician and producer who has worked with Serena Ryder, The Weekend, Hill and the Sky Heroes)
Vikas Kohli, award-winning producer and film composer
Eggertsen-Cooke flew to Toronto on Thursday and spent the weekend in Canada's largest city.

"The ceremony was fun and really cool and focused more on the Canadians, because that's what it is," she said. "In addition to the Best U.S.A. category, they also had a Best International category. The rest were Canadian categories."

The awards were held in a small venue called Revival.

"It's kind of like O.P. Rockwell in design," Eggertsen-Cooke said. "It's not much bigger. It may be a little wider, but there was no balcony."

During the ceremony, Eggersten-Cooke had the chance to meet some other nominees from different genres.

"There were all so great," she said. "I also met some younger songwriters — teenagers and children — because it was all ages.

The ceremony featured various performances by award winners.


"While the nominees weren't really recognized, I would go again, because what if you win and you're not there?" Eggertsen-Cooke said.

Although Eggertsen-Cooke didn't win an award, she was so happy to have submitted the song.

"I'm on a bunch of different songwriter groups, and I know a lot of websites you can register with and they post submission announcements," she said. "If it sounds good, I'll put in a submission. I did this one because it was an independent music organization."

Before and after the ceremony, Eggertsen-Cooke toured Toronto.

"I walked everywhere," she said. "Toronto was fun. It's very pretty and the city is growing. There was a ton of construction."

After speaking to cab drivers, Eggertsen-Cooke found the city was very business oriented.

"It's also very cosmopolitan and diverse, which was really cool," she said. "There was a ton of young people."

Teresa Eggertsen-Cooke can be seen in Park City at 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 27 and 28, at the Riverhorse on Main, 540 Main St. For information, visit her website.

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Teresa Eggersten Cooke: Live at the Metropolitan Room
December 12, 2014 Reviewed by Alix Cohen for Cabaret Scenes
Singer/pianist Teresa Eggertsen Cooke has the kind of midrange‐
folk‐straddles‐rock voice we lived for in the
seventies. It’s grounded with a face to the wind; authentic,
unfussy, authoritative. Occasionally one hears jazz
inflection, though blues, I think, are more her territory.
When she kicks in with the terrific “End of the Innocence”
(Bruce Hornsby/Don Henley)—“one of my favorite
songs”—we know the lady’s home. Declaratory phrasing
feels effortlessly on target. “This is the end of the
innocence/O’ beautiful, for spacious skies/But now those
skies are threatening/They’re beating plowshares into swords…” The song has gravitas
without becoming weighty. Eggersten Cooke creates sufficient momentum/ flow that we
don’t notice a lack of rhymes on which many singers stumble. She instinctively knows when
to pull in. Piano arrangement is lovely. A prayer‐like “The Last Day” (Brenda Russell/ John
Ewbank) and a plaintive “Wish You Were Here” (Roger Waters/David Gilmour) follow suit
with rhythmic finesse and an ear to communication.
Elton John and Bernie Taupin’s “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” is framed with
affectionate familiarity—dropping Gs, clipping some notes with pinking shears, pulling
others like taffy, adding syllables. It’s blues. “Let My Love Open the Door” (Pete
Townshend) and “Don’t Cry Out Loud” (Peter Allen/Carole Bayer Sager) are next, the latter
with a lovely, articulated instrumental. Eggersten Cooke neither patronizes the often lyrically
simpler past, nor does she contemporize it. Straight from the hip these were written,
straight from the hip they’re performed. “I Am… I Said” (Neil Diamond) is a great example
of this, a wound couched in textural chords.
It’s not until we reach the fourth song on this CD, however, that the artist’s talent comes
across. Most American Songbook choices are interpreted with like‐sounding piano
accompaniment, oddly similar phrasing, and less confident vocals as if trying to fit a square
peg in a round hole. Ben Lepley’s trombone is a singular exception. Later, this occurs with
more of the same genre. An exception is the disc’s last song, Stephen Sondheim’s “Send in
the Clowns,” which Eggersten Cooke makes her own. - Cabaret Scenes

Teresa Eggertsen-Cooke
September 29, 2014 | By Mark Dundas Wood | Add a Comment
Teresa Eggertsen-CookeThere’s a particular challenge for cabaret performers who are singer-pianists. When they come to the stage and sit down at the instrument, the very configuration can suggest a “piano bar” sort of show. Such singers face the ivories as much as they face the audience. Their hands are primarily occupied with the keyboard and are thereby largely unavailable to be used expressively in the way a singer standing at a microphone is able to do. Unless singer-pianists emulate the frenetic Jerry Lee Lewis, they are pretty much tied to the piano bench or stool for the duration of the performance. And if there are other musicians sharing the stage, the singer-pianist must also worry about cueing them, setting the tempos, and so on.

Utah-based singer-pianist Teresa Eggertsen-Cooke has a folk-jazz approach to performance and a smooth, warm vocal quality. She is friendly yet laid-back, stylish yet informal. And she seems eager to sing and sing and sing—in fact, she packed so many songs into her recent Metropolitan Room show, “Decades of Song,” that the voice from the sound booth heralded her finish before she was in fact ready and willing to leave the stage.

And, unfortunately, her show felt mostly like a glorified piano-bar set.

What was missing from Eggertsen-Cooke’s performance was a sense of occasion. Her song list seemed to be the menu for a sprawling musical smorgasbord. More thought could have been devoted to the selection and ordering of songs. On some numbers, the singer demonstrated a capacity for nuance and emotional commitment to the material, but she didn’t keep everyone listening with rapt ears. Clearly there were avid admirers of hers in the audience, yet some of them–notably those at the table next to mine–had no compunction about chattering with one another during her performance, as if they were in a club where the music wasn’t the main event. At times Eggertsen-Cooke seemed to be providing background music, uncomfortably foregrounded.

Late in the program, the singer mentioned that “Decades of Song” was dedicated to the memory of a dear friend who had succumbed to ALS. Certain songs she sang had special meaning in the context of their friendship. Had she made mention of this point earlier and followed through with it throughout, it might have helped give the show more shape and focus. Something of that sort was needed.

She delivered a number of Cole Porter songs, including an interesting, eccentrically syncopated “Night and Day.” On “All of You” she ran significant variations on the melody line, to the extent that the original tune was nearly lost. Something similar happened on “My Baby Just Cares for Me” (Walter Donaldson, Gus Kahn). This tendency went beyond mere jazz embellishment—it reminded me of some of the odd performances by pop singers in the 2004 Porter film biography De-Lovely, in which certain Porter lyrics were sung to Lord knows what melody. Though Eggertsen-Cooke clearly admires American Songbook classics, they don’t seem to be her forte. A sameness seems to set in with them after a while.

She did much better with later-era pop songs associated with such performers as Bette Midler, Carole King, Elton John, and Cyndi Lauper. Her rendition of “The Rose” (Amanda McBroom) was heartfelt and suited her vocal style and approach. Her playing on King’s “Home Again” was particularly inspired. And when she sang, “Yours are the sweetest eyes I’ve ever seen” during John’s “Your Song,” there was an emotional charge: she was clearly invested in lyricist Bernie Taupin’s sentiment.

Trombonist Ben Lepley joined her on certain numbers. While the combination of voice, piano, and trombone was something of a novelty and the sound was sometimes appealing, Epley came across as unsure, and Eggertsen-Cooke seemed to be working hard to cue him as to what he should be doing from moment to moment. Additional rehearsal time might have helped.

Eggertsen-Cooke’s vocal prowess, musicality, and potential for good rapport with the audience all seem to be at hand. I just hope that the next time she plays in a cabaret setting she will have found a director able to help shape her show and avoid the tendency toward passivity that comes with “piano bar syndrome.” She needs to pilot the show from behind the keyboard, confidently transporting her audience to the intended destination.

“Decades of Song”
Metropolitan Room – September 20 - Bistro Awards