Growing up, Steinhardt alum Grace Yurchuk always wrote songs in her childhood bedroom — that is, until she produced and released her first single from her Third Avenue North dorm room in 2021. Since then, she has released a full-length album and two EPs. After amassing almost 130,000 Instagram followers, almost 23,000 Spotify listeners and millions of views on social media, Yurchuk is preparing to release a live album set, “Just Between Us: The Live Album,” on Oct. 4. 

In an interview with WSN, Yurchuk discussed her growth as a songwriter, using social media as a marketing tool and future aspirations to write Broadway shows. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

WSN: What does your songwriting process look like? 

Yurchuk: Songwriting, for me, is a balance between satisfaction and surprise. As a listener, part of music is pattern-based. I know the formula. I know how this will land. I know how a listener would perceive this. But also, it’s a game of keeping people entertained — adding things that they might not expect. For me, as a writer, I also need to make sure that I’m not falling into my own formulas. I’m developing a style slowly but surely with all the practice that I’ve had, but then I make sure that I’m not becoming habitual and everything I’m putting out sounds the same.

Yurchuk majored in voice on the classical track at NYU, studying opera in English, German, French and Italian, and graduated last spring. She wrote and produced her first single, “Need Me,” about trying to build and maintain relationships as a first-year NYU student during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, she has released 25 more songs and said she still spends hours songwriting each day. 

WSN: After writing so many songs, what inspired you to release ‘Need Me’ as your first real single? 

Yurchuk: I thought that that was a good message in a time where, especially on college campuses, people were very isolated socially, and it was hard to make friends and keep those connections. I wanted to put that out there to show that I’m willing to keep those relationships at NYU despite how difficult it was. I do think that that resonated with my friends and with my class at that time, because everyone was trying their best to make friends and keep those connections. 

When Yurchuk released her first album, “Surprise, Surprise” in November 2023, she was disappointed with the lack of attention it received. However, about a month later, she went viral for the first time after playing her unreleased song titled “Viral” in a TikTok video. The experience inspired her to utilize social media to propel her music career, and now, she posts new songs multiple times per week on TikTok and Instagram for thousands of followers. 

WSN: What is your strategy to garner a social media following as a singer-songwriter?  

Yurchuk: What got people’s attention was being myself, and being genuine in my writing and in the way that I presented myself. I try to respond to as many comments and messages as I can. I spend so much time on it. People want that real connection. They want something real when they’re going on social media, whether they’re realizing that or not, and I would like to be that real thing that they find. If you’re coming to my page, you know what you’re getting — it’s me in my room playing you a song in the most honest way that I can. That’s the brand that I’m building.

Yurchuk is currently writing an all-treble musical based on William Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar.” She was inspired by an all-treble production of “Jesus Christ Superstar” that Steinhardt’s West 4th Stage Company put on while she was an NYU student. Yurchuk has released some songs from the show on social media and Spotify, and she hopes to release them all in an album March 2025. 

WSN: How do you expand your online presence while experimenting with new styles of songwriting? 

Yurchuk: It’s much harder now in this modern age of theater to get new work put out, especially if you’re a new name like me, so my alternative route to be able to test my material is posting it online to this mega-theater-fan audience, getting their feedback and learning what works and what doesn’t. Considering I’m very new to theatrical composition, I keep getting to test out drafts of this show, and it’s slowly building an audience that is looking forward to a full-fledged production of a show.

Beyond songwriting, Yurchuk also hosts online lessons to tutor students in songwriting and producing, which she promotes on her Instagram. She said that she plans to expand her music studio to tutor more people and continue to post original music on social media in preparation for her live album’s release in the fall. Yurchuk also said that she hopes to eventually write her own Broadway show and win a Tony Award. 

WSN: Where does your songwriting inspiration come from?

Yurchuk: The thing that motivates me the most is that my audience is desperate for real, honest art. There’s a current opening in the industry that some people are tapping into, and other people are just catching up. People are desperate for good art and good entertainment that has substance and something new. We’ve done the old way of doing it before — over, and over and over again — but that’s why people are gravitating towards what I’m doing online: constantly sharing, learning and growing authentically in front of people. We’re at the precipice of something very new and exciting, and I want to be at the front of that.

Contact Rory Lustberg at [email protected].