When choir teacher Stacey Kikkawa was invited to nominate students for the annual OC Artist of the Year competition, she included senior Chase McFarland on her list. But instead of submitting a vocal performance video audition, Chase entered in the music composition category.  

Chase was a semifinalist for the OC Artist of the Year competition sponsored by the OC Register. In order to be a qualifier one must submit a resume, a headshot, as well as a showcase of their work. He was able to move past the qualifier round and make it into the semi-final round. 

Out of the 138 OC Artist nominees in the Instrumental Music category, only 16 nominees were semi-finalists. 

Chase has been composing music ever since the beginning of COVID as something to do. Now, his hobby has spiraled into a more serious passion.

“I first started with hip hop and now I’m more into music movie scoring but I still do a wide variety of genres,” Chase said. “I do hip hop, I do jazz, classical movie scoring, pop, I do a lot of them. It just helps me figure out what I am studying and how it helps me with my versatility and being able to hopefully make this a career.”

He finds inspiration in many artists from a variety of genres. For classical pieces, Chase takes most inspiration from Studio Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi. For R&B and pop, he finds inspiration from artists SZA, d4vd, Daniel Caesar. 

Chase posts his songs to his Spotify account Prod. Sanctuary. He plans on going to Cal State Northridge and to major in Music Industry Administration.

Click here to listen to a sample of his music:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HHedCO1P1CTRaaCX-rFGktcjBv3ho-ak/view?t=1