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Woodbridge, CT—February 25, 2025—Most 17-year-olds on their summer break play video games, go shopping, or have a summer sports activity. Flynn Ayers scored a soundtrack to a play. It’s an impressive feat for a Junior in High School.
Flynn Ayers’ mother, Brigid Carney, contacted the director, Kevin Shinnick when he said on social media that he was “looking for a unique sound.” Carney knew that Flynn Ayers was the obvious choice. “She has been making music since before she could speak,” Carney stated. Flynn Ayers was “very excited to try something new,” but she was “challenged because I’ve never written a song for early medieval times... 1960s doo-wop was about as far as I’ve gone back.” Flynn did a significant amount of research to understand the musicality of this play. “John Barry’s discography is impressive, with more than 100 movies to his name. He did the original score for The Lion In Winter, and he won a BAFTA for it. I knew of his work from Dances With Wolves, so I knew that these would be big shoes to fill.”
Ayers collaborated with the director for more than six months to get the sound right. This experience helps Junior Flynn Ayers with her admission to her dream university the Berklee College of Music after graduation next year (2025-2026) from Hamden Hall Country Day School in Hamden, Connecticut. Flynn has a catalog of more than 100 original songs, and she states unabashedly, “I want to be the next Taylor Swift.” Ayers also collaborated with Bethany’s The Recording Den to bring this sound to life. The CEO of The Recording Den, Travis Branch, said, “It was great to collaborate with Flynn Ayers on the soundtrack of The Lion In Winter. We hope it’s the first of many for this talented Junior!”
Flynn Ayers has won multiple awards at the local, state, and regional levels, starting with writing poems when she was in elementary school and graduating to writing songs in middle school. Her latest achievements include the Connecticut Music Educators Association (CMEA) “All State Choir” as a Soprano with an almost perfect score. She is also a semi-finalist in CMEA’s composition competition. She credits her musical abilities to “it’s a team experience”, as she is in the choir at school under the direction of Matthew Harrison, as well as a vocal student of Professor Maggie Lieberman and pianist Rachael Jungkeit of the Neighborhood Music School. Director Karl Gasteyer has been her drama teacher since seventh grade. “Music comes from both sides of the family” but most prominently from her father, Captain Timothy Carney, a New Haven Firefighter and bagpiper with the City of New Haven’s Emerald Society’s Pipe and Drum.
Unfortunately, Flynn Ayers cannot see the play she scored because she is “Regina George” in the Hamden Hall Country Day School’s production of Mean Girls, starting Thursday, March 6, 2025, at 7 pm. The show will also be performed on Friday, March 7, 2025, at 7 pm. The final showing of Mean Girls is Saturday, March 8, 2025, at 4 pm. For more information on Mean Girls, please contact Dawn Miceli at Hamden Hall Country Day School or https://www.hamdenhall.org.
The Lion In Winter will be presented in Rochester, NY, at the MUCCC. More information on the play can be found by contacting Kevin Shinnick, Director, or the website
https://www.muccc.org/events/tetcny-presents-the-lion-in-winter. Interested in the soundtrack? It’s on her YouTube Channel, https://www.youtube.com/@flynnayers7876.
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