The musical trio is called Grace Notes and they have been tirelessly performing outdoors this week to help raise money for their upcoming trip. The young women are performing today in front of the Marketplace Foods grocery store on 1930 South Broadway from 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

In addition to performing, the women also are rotating on food truck shifts, selling hotdogs, brats and chips while the other group members perform.

“The truck was provided by Marketplace. They provided almost everything and we just paid for the food,” Lydia Hoverson said. “Marketplace has been a huge blessing to us. They just wanted to help us with our trip.”

The funds raised for the trip will help the trio pay for lodging, airfare and conference registration and admission. The group is excited to not only compete but to learn from the various conference workshops and meet with other attending songwriters, producers and music professionals.

Lydia Hoverson plays guitar and sings while her trio mates from Grace Notes work the food truck on Friday.

The competition is for songwriting specifically and the trio has around three original songs it’s preparing to enter. Grace Notes will record original songs and send them in prior to the conference. The recording will be judged based on lyrics and melody, and winning entries will be awarded at the Nashville conference.

Lydia Hoverson, 22, plays mandolin, guitar, piano, and harmonizes vocals for the group. Her sister Tori Hoverson, 20, plays violin, guitar, piano and contributes harmonizing backup vocals as well. The two sisters also compose the instrumentation for the group.

Kamryn Morrison, 22, performs most of the singing and writes most of the lyrics for the trio’s original songs. Morrison also plays guitar and piano. All three Grace Notes members were born and raised in Minot.

The name “Grace Notes” was thought up by Morrison and refers to the Christian songwriting the trio does.

“We play a little bit of everything but our songwriting is Christian,” Morrison said.

The friends have jammed out together since they were young but their first official public performance was at the same South Broadway Marketplace when they were ages 13 and 15, singing Christmas carols in the bakery more than seven years ago.

“We’ve been friends since we were 2 years old, so it’s been 20 years of friendship,” Morrison said.

During its seven years of public performances, Grace Notes has performed during Minot’s Holiday Train Festivities and for the annual Frozen Fingers Festival held in April.

Additionally, the trio members started their own project during the COVID-19 lockdown called “Sidewalk Sing-along.” The women would play music and sing through the windows to residents of nursing homes, with the goal of helping residents combat loneliness and bring them a sense of hope.

Since the pandemic, Grace Notes has continued to do volunteer performances at nursing homes and assisted living residences.

The trio has a versatile backlog of songs to choose from when performing.

“When we did the Midsummer Festival, we played a lot of Norwegian songs. Some events are more country, like Frozen Fingers – they like more country music,” Lydia Hoverson said.

Grace Notes also plays bluegrass and rock occasionally in addition to country and their Christian music.