Maggie Rogers

Maggie Rogers (born April 25, 1994) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, and producer from Easton, Maryland. She rose to fame after her song "Alaska" was played to Pharrell Williams during a master class at New York University. Her songs "Alaska" and "Dog Years" placed numbers 64 and 173 on Triple J Hottest 100, 2016, respectively. In 2017, Rogers will perform at South by Southwest and on The Tonight Show. Growing up in rural Maryland, Rogers began playing harp at age seven, and loved the music of Gustav Holst and Vivaldi. Her mom would play neo-soul divas such Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill. By the time she was in middle school, Rogers had added piano, guitar, and songwriting to her repertoire. She graduated from The Country School (Easton, MD) in 2008, and was welcomed back in 2012 to accept the award as Outstanding Young Alumna. While studying at St. Andrew's School in Delaware, she fell in love with the banjo and folk music, and attended a Berklee College of Music program during the summer after her junior year. Rogers won the program's songwriting contest, which spurred her to focus on writing as high school came to a close. During her senior year, she turned a broom closet into a makeshift studio and recorded what became her first album, The Echo (2012). Rogers included her demos as part of her application to New York University's Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. She released another folk album, Blood Ballet (2014), during her sophomore year at the school. Folk blog EarToTheGround Music explained that the album, "...begs for listeners to confront deep personal emotions." However, her sound was evolving, thanks in part to her discovery of electronic music while studying abroad in France. Rogers united the different strands of her music with huge success in 2016 with "Alaska", a song she wrote in 15 minutes about a hiking trip for a masterclass with Pharrell Williams. A video of a visibly moved Williams listening to the song went viral that June, resulting in millions of views as well as hundreds of thousands of plays of The Echo and Blood Ballet. She cites Carrie Brownstein, Patti Smith, Kim Gordon, and Björk as her musical inspirations. Rogers has a brother, named David who attended Gunston Day School. In addition to "Alaska", she has released two other singles, "Dog Years" and "On and Off", which are included on her debut major-label extended play (EP), Now That the Light Is Fading. The EP was released on February 17, 2017.