The 18-year-old member of Roseville Covenant Church in Roseville, Minnesota, is far from home. She is attending the Youth With a Mission (YWAM) discipleship training school for music, arts, and dance in Brisbane. Peterson arrived in October and will continue through April.
As part of her work with YWAM, she will travel to China, where she will play at several American coffee houses. Chinese students frequent the coffee houses to work on their English.
Peterson currently is in a band with a couple from Finland. “We play folksy sort of stuff as well as some of my songs from the album,” she says, in reference to her first CD, Summer Spent, which she completed before traveling to Australia. She spent several summers recording the album, having started when she was a sophomore in high school. The album includes “Love Song,” which she performed at CHIC.
Unlike many first CD productions, session players perform on the CD, including producer Bruce Balgaard, who has performed at a number of Evangelical Covenant churches and conferences. “It was a ton of fun to have a handful of my friends, who also believed in Julia’s talent, to come and play for little to no pay in order to launch this amazing young artist,” Balgaard says.
In addition to winning the CHIC contest, Peterson was invited to perform with the band, and she still draws on that experience. “It seems strange to me that I played in front of thousands of people my age,” she says. “If I get overly nervous before I play, I just remind myself that there won’t be as many people listening. It reminds me how blessed I am and what an incredible, valuable experience it is to play with people who are better than me.”
To purchase the CD online, visit Covenant Bookstore.
