On a Wednesday evening, junior communication student Sofia Dominguez auditioned in Woods Theatre for Blue Hawk Record’s fifteenth compilation album. Just a girl and her guitar, and a series of four chords, she was chosen as one of the five artists to be featured on the album.
Born in Argentina and having grown up in Union City, New Jersey, Dominguez got into music at a very young age. At the age of eight, her mother encouraged her to pursue guitar lessons before she began utilizing the internet to expand her musical knowledge.
“Music was that thing that I always wanted to learn more about, and I always was doing more,” said Dominguez. “For some reason I just had this connection to it. It’s definitely super important to me. Without it, I don’t even know who I would be as a person. It’s something I feel that I need to just keep going, whether it’s making music or listening to music.”
Her song on the upcoming compilation album, titled ‘Had I Known,’ was written this past August and has a personal, story-telling aspect to it.
She said, “Lyrically, I’m talking directly to my past self, like who I was when I graduated high school—which was only a couple of years ago, but there’s a huge difference between who I was then and who I am now.”
While the first recording of the song was very Lumineers-inspired with acoustic-filled chord progressions, the sound is evolving to feature electric delay and reverb. Lyrically, the song is partly inspired by the indie-pop act Bleachers, making references to the exit signs of New Jersey, the state she calls home.
Rogan McGarvey, a sophomore music student and Operations Manager of Blue Hawk Records, said, “We heard her, and we were like, ‘She has to be on the record. This is a great song, there’s no way something else can top this.’ She just killed it. Right from the get-go, this girl’s got a hit.”
Dominguez has been working with a team of music professionals from the record label to build upon the song she wrote about an important part of her life—the transition from high school, to community college, and eventually to Monmouth University.
She said, “Everyone’s pitching in, and it’s cool—a bunch of people in a room just working on one song. I wrote this song with the idea that I might audition with it. I knew I wanted to be a part of the process of what Blue Hawk does.”
McGarvey, who described Dominguez’s song as “Jersey Indie,” said, “When you have twenty minds working on one song, there are thousands of things you can come up with. She’s got a really good song coming along.”
While her biggest challenge is finding her own style, she finds inspiration in artists like Jack Antonoff from Bleachers, Charli XCX, Lady Gaga, Carly Rae Jepsen, and Lorde.
Aside from working with Blue Hawk Records, she has a knack for producing her own instrumental music, often sharing it on her Instagram account (@iforgoteverything). With her musical sound resembling her laid-back, versatile essence, Dominguez hopes to experiment more with music in the future and become more involved with the University’s record label.
“I just want to see where it goes,” she said. “I definitely do want to meet more musically-inclined people, people who genuinely love sitting in a room for one day and just making music or just listening to music. I would like to see what Lakehouse Studios is like and just experience that as well.”
“What I’ve heard so far is really decent songwriting,” said McGarvey. “Great first impression. She’s a super chill girl, too. I love her vibe.”
Other than music, Dominguez is involved with HawkTV and considers media production to be one of her many interests.
From working with robotics in high school to pursuing media production in college, participating in FilmOneFest’s 24-hour film festival, creating her own podcast called “The Tenth Hour,” and experimenting with a lifelong passion for music, Dominguez’s stream of creativity never stops flowing.
PHOTO COURTESY of Blue Hawk Records
