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Sibleys win NPR crown


Pete and Anne Sibley perform Saturday in New York on Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion” radio show, where they won the annual talent contest. Courtesy photo / Brian McNeal / KJZA / National Public Radio

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By Angus M. Thuermer Jr., Jackson Hole, Wyo.
April 13, 2009

Fans of “A Prairie Home Companion” voted Jackson’s Anne and Pete Sibley champions Saturday in the annual talent contest hosted by the popular National Public Radio show.

Host Garrison Keillor announced the two winners after the Sibleys performed “Will You Walk With Me” and “Carry Me Over” in The Great American Duet Singoff. They competed against five other pairs of musicians at Town Hall in New York City.

“We feel pretty spoiled,” Anne Sibley said in a telephone interview Sunday. “It was an honor to share our music.”

Anne Sibley plays guitar, Pete the banjo and they have produced at least 6 CDs. The radio show has an audience of 4 million.

Voting took place at the broadcast theater and online during Saturday’s performance. The Sibleys received $2,000 as the grand prize and performed an encore for Keillor and his audience. They also received the Silver Water Tower Trophy, which even Keillor couldn’t describe on air.

“You’ll have to explain it,” he told the Jackson couple.

The wry-humored host noted that the contestants would also be able to take the A Train where they would meet panhandlers. In New York they would get jaywalking lessons and would have the pleasure of taking off from LaGuardia Airport, a runway so short jets require a catapult to get into the air, according to the show.

The audience at Town Hall applauded the Sibleys warmly after each number. Three New York “judges,” who only commented on the performances in the democratic contest, also praised the Jackson couple.

Rob Fischer, a music director and conductor; Walter Bobbie, a theater director; and Raul Melo, tenor for the Metropolitan Opera, all said the two harmonized well and complemented one another.

One said the couple sang from their souls: “They sang as one.”

Melo said the duo were natural singers.

“It was so effortless,” he said of their vocals.

Noting that two married couples were his favorites, one judge wondered if there wasn’t something extra that such partners bring to the microphone as they try to harmonize their lives.

The Sibleys competed against Mood Indigo, which includes Susan Elliott and Joe Romano, of Houston; Red Heart the Ticker, of Robin MacArthur and Tyler Gibbons, of Marlboro, Vt.; Noah and Nathan Rickertsen, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Elizabeth Brown and Connie Renda, of Brooklyn; and Lee and Sarah Atkinson, of Greensboro, N.C.

The weekly radio program is heard in Jackson Hole through Wyoming Public Radio. Anne Sibley said before her appearance that playing on the program would fulfill a life’s dream.

“Maybe other musicians would aspire to be on ‘American Idol,’ but we aspire to be on ‘A Prairie Home Companion,’ ” she said.

 in an interview. “We always have.”

More than 700 pairs applied to compete in Saturday’s contest.



 
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