International Songwriting Competition Announces 2011 Winners

New Zealand’s Kimbra took home the International Songwriting Competition’s (ISC) highest honor for her title, “Cameo Lover.” She receives $25,000 cash and a slew of merchandise including a Lowden F50 Guitar valued at $11,170. Kimbra was recently featured on Gotye‘s smash “Somebody That I Used To Know.”

Writers Blake Bollinger (Parallel Music), Neal Carpenter (Bug Music) took home first place honors in the Country category. Second and third place Country category winners went to Rodney Clawson, Lynn Dutton, Dustin Lynch, Joshua Dorr, Bruce Wallace, and Kaci Bolls. Nashville’s Rory Feek was honored with a second place Americana title, “Sweet Emmylou,” written with Catherine Britt.

Celebrity judges for the competition included Wynonna, Billy Currington, Craig Morgan, Tom Waits, Kelly Clarkson, Ozzy Osbourne, Michael W. Smith, Jeremy Camp, and industry executives Allison Jones (Big Machine Label Group), Monte Lipman (Universal Republic Records), David Massey (Mercury Records), Kim Buie (Thirty Tigers), and Trevor Jerideau (RCA Records) among others.

Established in 2002, the ISC has grown to accept more than 16,000 song entries and awards more than $150,000 in cash and prizes to both amateur and professional songwriters worldwide. Entries for the next year are now being accepted here.

To sample some of the winning songs and see a complete list of winners, click here.

Honorable mentions for the Country category include:
“Do What You Gotta Do” – Dave Bastien – Londonderry, NH, USA
“Lie” – Ruben Estevez, Jason Massey, Brad Ramsey – Nashville, TN, USA
“Nothing Sweet About Alabama” – Bill DiLuigi, Jesse Stern, Dave Tough – Cane Ridge, TN, USA
“Quicksand” – Lou Penta - Ventura, CA, USA
“Stone Cold Crazy” – Michael McGee, Scott Miller (McGee) – Locarno, Switzerland
“This Feels Good” – Lee Johnson, Scott Miller – Washington, DC, USA
“When It All Goes South” – Jaylene Johnson, Sharlene Loveless, Jolene Keats – Winnipeg, MB, Canada
“When It Hurts Like That” – Matthew Ullman, Kyle Marion – Mt. Juliet, TN, USA
“With Love” – Josh Finlayson, Willie Mack – Nashville, TN, USA