Orange's Robbie Mortimer a finalist for Toyota Star Maker in 2023 Tamworth Country Music Festival

Orange's Robbie Mortimer will be hoping to take his country music career to the next level when he takes to the stage in the Toyota Star Maker at the Tamworth Country Music Festival this weekend.

Non-stop country music this week has been heralding the unofficial return of the iconic Tamworth festival dedicated solely to the genre.

Performance and event venue, Oz Opry - which launched this year - jumped the gun on the festival with seven-straight-hours of nothing but country music, kicking off on Wednesday morning.

On the edge of Tamworth, visitors made the trip to the Butler Estate and were treated to Hey Hey It's Country Today, along with performances from more than 10 artists including Ross McGregor, and Golden Gig winner, MacKenzie Lee Hall.

The event will be followed by Legends of Country on Thursday, a free CCMA National Talent Quest on Friday, and an inaugural Opry Roundup on Saturday.

Priced gigs cost $25 and will run from 10am to 5pm.

The Tamworth Country Music Festival officially begins on January 13 with the opening concert in Bicentennial Park.

Discovering he'd made the cream of the country crop has left Orange-based musician Robbie Mortimer "pinching" his younger self.

Seeing his name as one of 10 finalists on the list, Robbie's now turned his full focus to being dubbed the next Toyota Star Maker at the Tamworth Country Music Festival, set to perform on January 15.

The nation's biggest annual music festival, it's been a dream in the Central West muso's pipeline for several years now - which has officially landed on the table of realities.

"Just to have my name up there with country royalty, 10-year-old Robbie would've been absolutely pinching himself yesterday," Mr Mortimer said on Tuesday.

"It feels very rewarding and really exciting to be recognised on this level and see a lot of that hard work and sacrifice paying off now, because it's been a hell of a journey, this music gig."

Following the TCMF even more closely when his muso pal Clancy Pie made the last two grand finals, Robbie said seeing his mate "rise to the challenge" stirred a personal hunger to taste the same Star Maker thrill for himself.

Which is why he threw his hat in the ring for 2023 to have his own experience, aiming to absorb every bit of the experience as the unique event looms.

"I'm very, very gracious for and humbled by the opportunity, it's an honour to be a part of such an illustrious group of musicians," Mr Mortimer said.

"And at the same time I don't just want to be a number in it, because I'm not there to fill space; I want to go there and win it.

"That's probably a bit of my competitive nature coming out," he laughed, "but I am very, very humbled and honoured to be a part of such an illustrious group of musicians."

Officially in work-mode now, Robbie said despite the "determination, blood, sweat and tears" involved, he's always found an ease and extreme comfort in expressing himself through creative channels.

Which is also why this latest announcement arrived with a gamut of emotions in-tow as well, with the peak pandemic years a pivotal turning point for his career.

While admittedly "hating" the isolation and feeling disconnected from the world, Robbie's hindsight involves a deep level of reflection and finding his own pause button - where he talked about using the time during lockdown to develop a greater sense of personal resilience, patience, and direction.

"I struggled through [the pandemic] because of not having that in-person connectivity with a crowd and as a creative person, it's a struggle to feel like you can't really show yourself in that way," he said.

"As much as I hated it at the time, I now see those years as a huge blessing and I think COVID was the best thing for me as a musician because it made me re-evaluate life and realise how badly I wanted to do this.

"So [the pandemic] more or less turned my hand where I thought 'well if you want to do music forever, then this is how you do it and this is how you go about it'."

This polished skillset has travelled into the here-and-now with him, where Robbie consciously allocates moments of pause to reflect on the labyrinth of life.

It allows him to acknowledge what he's already achieved, what he still wants to conquer, and what it's going to take to stay the course and get him there.

To the point he's taken to pen and paper for more than lyrical purposes, listing weaker areas for further development and his strengths to hone in on more.

"I think I've done some pretty impressive and cool things over the last 12-months with my tours and there's been many sleepless nights of thinking 'is this song going to sell' or 'am I going to do this right'," Mr Mortimer said.

"From knowing where I've come from to now, this is all going to motivate me more when I get up on that stage at Toyota Park in front of a couple of thousand people, it'll be in front of the biggest crowd I've ever played for with my own songs.

"And I'll know I was once playing for two or three people; and how much I still humbly appreciate those few people coming to support me at the very beginning of it all."

A firm believer of the saying "if you're the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room", Robbie's pretty determined to push himself to the limits.

Another of his goals is to continue learning as much as he can from the people in his life and his peers in the industry, in order to fully immerse himself in the experience and watch it unfold from there.

"I'm taking it all as a learning experience and music-wise, I've come further and done more than I ever expected to do; I'm really happy that I'm here," he said.

"And [the Tamworth announcement] also makes me want to explore that 'big, bad and scary world' in the sense of well if I've managed to come this far, then let's see what else I can do out there'."

Which he also credits to the super power of stubbornness when it's used in a way where being restrained isn't an option on the musician's menu of success.

"I'm impatient and about as stubborn as they come and that's actually been a really good thing for my music; I'm stubborn as hell, but it's gotten me through the times where I've been knocked back," Mr Mortimer said.

"It honestly is [a super power] and I think it's one of my best assets, because I think 'well I'm not going to be told no I can't do something' or that I'm not able to reach a goal I've set.

"I've been told 'no' too many times in that sense; so if anything, it just lights a little fire in my belly every time and helps to push me even further."

The Top 10 Star Maker grand finalists will each perform two songs at the acclaimed festival, with Robbie saying he's "been preparing" for this competition, well-before the announcement.

A manifestation that's evidently now birthed itself in real life, he's been writing almost one song on a weekly basis for the past year, with Dashboard Drummer on the cards as one of those performance choices.

"Dashboard Drummer is an interactive one where people sing and clap along to it because I think it makes people feel good with those contemporary country vibes," he said.

"I've also been working on a new song Life's Easy When We're Young which is about growing up here in Orange and what I learned as a young kid growing up on a farm, I I think a lot of people will connect to that lyrically and the music behind it.

"Often something you're going to write about is going to appeal to people, which is also one of the hardest things about it, but you've got to sing about things that are authentic or real to you.

"I very much enjoy the art of poetry and writing, but I don't want to rhyme words together just because they rhyme; I want all of my songs to have a purpose and a meaning, where they tell my own stories while still forming that personal connection for another person."

While his gratitude levels are currently soaring, Robbie is keeping his head in the game with one of his career's biggest opportunities to date.

With the 29-year-old musician's next milestone birthday in April, he's hoping to take out the title with his 20s tag still in tact.

"If I do win it, then it can say 'Robbie Mortimer, 29'," he said, "and hey, that'd be a pretty good send-off to the era."

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