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New Haven, CT — Hamden Hall Country Day School senior Flynn Ayers is already collecting major music accolades before even earning her driver’s license. Ayers has won two BroadwayWorld Awards, taking home honors for “Best Sound” and “Best Music Direction” for her original score in an upstate New York theater TETCNY’s production of “The Lion in Winter”. Ayers composed the soundtrack for the classic historical drama with director Kevin Shinnick, who was searching for a “unique sound” for the production. Her mother, Brigid Carney, states, “She has been making music since before she could speak,” Carney said. “Flynn was the obvious choice.”
To prepare, Ayers immersed herself in research, including studying the work of legendary composer John Barry, who wrote the original score for “The Lion in Winter” and won a BAFTA for his efforts. “I knew his work from “Dances With Wolves”, so I knew these would be big shoes to fill,” Ayers said. The resulting score earned critical acclaim and two BroadwayWorld Awards, one for “Best Sound” and “Best Music Direction”. The Rochester City Magazine stated, “Original sound, which included dramatic incidental music that evokes epic adventure movies, was composed by Flynn Ayers.”
The project proved to be a turning point for Ayers, helping her gain acceptance into her dream school, the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she will enroll after graduating from Hamden Hall Country Day School in Hamden, Connecticut. Already, Ayers boasts a catalog of more than 100 original songs. “I want to be the next Taylor Swift,” she said unabashedly.
Ayers also collaborated with The Recording Den in Bethany, Connecticut, to bring the soundtrack to life. Travis Branch, CEO of The Recording Den, praised her talent: “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 young woman.”
Her BroadwayWorld wins add to an already impressive list of accomplishments. Ayers has earned multiple local, state, and regional awards, beginning with poetry in elementary school and progressing to songwriting in middle school. She credits her musical growth to mentors, including choir director Matthew Harrison, voice teacher Maggie Lieberman, and pianist Rachael Jungkeit of the Neighborhood Music School. Her love of music started with drums and Gary Fiandra of East Coast Music and Nick Wadson of the Bermuda Drum Institute. Her love of singing can be attributed to her teacher, Deanna Friesen, of Bermuda’s Warwick Academy, from her time living in Bermuda.
Music runs deep in the family, according to her father, Captain Timothy Carney, a New Haven firefighter and bagpiper with the City of New Haven’s Emerald Society Pipe. Recently, Ayers won the Bethlehem Fair’s “Got Talent”, starred as Regina George in “Mean Girls”, was selected for the Connecticut Music Educators Association (CMEA) All-State Choir as a soprano four years consecutively, and was a finalist in the CMEA Composition Competition.
With BroadwayWorld Awards in hand and Berklee on the horizon, what’s next for Flynn Ayers? She laughed. “My driving test. Wish me luck!”
Interested in the soundtrack? It’s on her YouTube Channel, https://www.youtube.com/@flynnayers7876.
Media may arrange interviews by emailing Brigid Carney at Brigid.Carney@gmail.com.
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