By Carl Hoover

Tribune-Herald entertainment editor

Waco native Caroline Cutbirth admits she was terrified the last time she performed on the Waco Hall stage. She was an 18-year-old Baylor University freshman who had made it to the Top 5 of the Baylor Icon competition, an “American Idol”-like talent contest. “I was deathly afraid. I didn’t think I’d make it that far,” she recalled.

Some seven years later, she’s back at Waco Hall and glad — not scared — to be there.

Cutbirth, now a Nashville-based country singer, performs Friday night as the guest artist for the Waco Symphony Orchestra’s annual “Holiday Pops!” concert.

“Holiday Pops!: A Country Christmas”

With Caroline Cutbirth and the Waco Symphony Orchestra

Performance: 7:30 p.m. Friday at Waco Hall.

Tickets: $15 to $35. Call 754-0851 for ticket information.

More: Waco Today interviews Caroline Cutbirth

---

Caroline Cutbirth returns to Waco Hall on Friday night for a performance with the Waco Symphony Orchestra.

She’ll bring her professional colleagues Tayla Lynn and Jennifer Wayne — the three form a trio known as The Girls — who’ll sing backup for Cutbirth.

The evening will showcase not only her voice, but also her songwriting. Cutbirth, 25, will sing four of her songs: “To Count For Something,” “What More Do You Want,” “On the Dance Floor” (inspired, Cutbirth said, by her dance-loving great-grandmother) and “An Arm’s Length Away.”

The country singer has performed at venues across Nashville over the last few years, including the famed Bluebird Cafe, but Friday’s symphony pops concert provides something different. “I cannot wait to hear how (her songs) sound with the symphony,” she said in a recent phone interview from Nashville.

In addition to her country numbers, Cutbirth will sing “The Christmas Song” and “O Holy Night.” The rest of the program, emceed by Waco attorney John Deaver, will feature the WSO in orchestral arrangements of traditional Christmas and seasonal music.

Cutbirth said the idea for the country-flavored pops show came about more than a year ago when her parents, Steven and Sharron Cutbirth, were in Nashville to attend one of her concerts. Waco Symphony Association Executive Director Susan Taylor and Music Director Stephen Heyde also were in Nashville for a national symphony orchestra convention. The Wacoans all met for a visit, and the idea of Cutbirth performing with the Waco Symphony grew from there, she said.

Cutbirth moved to Nashville in 2002 after her freshman year at Baylor to study at Belmont University, from which she graduated in 2007 with a music business degree. An internship with Nashville producer and music publisher Victoria Shaw (writer of Garth Brooks’ “The River,” producer of country trio Lady Antebellum) has opened the biggest doors so far in Cutbirth’s career.

It led to her current project, a television reality show built around The Girls, whose three members boast distinguished bloodlines: Jennifer is John Wayne’s granddaughter, Tayla is Loretta Lynn’s granddaughter and Cutbirth claims Daniel Boone as a distant relative.

The show, which Cutbirth says has been picked up by cable television network Oxygen, will follow the three through their love lives — “I’m dating a 21-year-old rocker, Jennifer is dating a rock star and Tayla’s married,” said Cutbirth — and their musical careers. Each episode will feature new original music. At a time when it’s difficult for new acts to find their audience, the country singer-songwriter believes regular television exposure will go far to achieve precisely that.

“It’s the biggest thing in my career. We’re putting all our energy toward that,” she said.

Friday’s symphony pops concert also will feature the winner of the Waco Symphony Council’s celebrity conductor fundraiser: He or she will conduct the orchestra in “Sleigh Ride.” Hatch Bailey, Judy Haller and Linda Hatchel are the conducting candidates, and the one who receives the most $20 votes wins the baton.

Votes will be counted through Friday afternoon. To vote, go online at www.wacosymphony.com or call the Waco Symphony office at 754-0851.

choover@wacotrib.com

757-5749