Overland Park teen Kate Cosentino writes song for new American Girl doll

Kate Cosentino would have busted a guitar string if she had to keep her secret any longer.

The Overland Park teen was chosen to write a song for the newest member of the American Girl family. The doll, a singer/songwriter from Nashville named Tenney Grant, debuted on Friday.

“It’s been so hard not to say anything for a year,” said the Blue Valley West senior, who is 18.

The doll comes with songs written by young female songwriters from across the country. Cosentino’s song, “Music in Me,” is among them. Now she heads to Nashville this weekend to help launch the new doll.

It won’t be long before Cosentino makes her new home in Nashville, where she plans to study music business at Belmont University.

“Kate was one of the nine songwriters chosen to have their songs featured throughout the Tenney books, products and behind-the-scenes videos on YouTube,” said Susan Jevens, associate manager of public relations for American Girl in Middleton, Wisc.

“It’s been great to work with Kate on this project.”

The company teamed up with Erika Wollam Nichols, CEO of the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, and music producer/artist manager Denise Stiff to find young singer-songwriters to create Tenney-inspired music, Jevens said.

Cosentino’s video of her song will be posted to the American Girl YouTube channel on March 2, Jevens said.

As a member of the Nashville Songwriters Association International, Cosentino had met Nichols’ husband, producer/songwriter Roger Alan Nichols, a while back during a mentoring session in Nashville.

He contacted her “out of the blue” and told her his wife was working on “this girl’s project” Cosentino said.

He didn’t know exactly what the project was but wondered whether Cosentino would be interested in trying out.

Cosentino was shocked when she found out it was for American Girl, whose dolls she and her friends and cousins loved to play with when they were younger.

She began chasing her music dream as a young girl, too, starting voice and guitar lessons in first grade. She wrote her first song in third grade.

In 2014 she was the under-18-year-old winner in the UK Songwriting Contest, where one judge said: “Kate is terrific. She is amazing for 15. Very mature writing and vocal.”

Her five-song album, “Smart,” includes a song called “Just Remember” about Alzheimer’s inspired by her great-grandmother, who has the disease.

Cosentino wrote a country tune for Tenney, but her own tastes run more toward “folksy jazz,” with Lianne La Havas and Regina Spektor two of her favorite performers.

She wrote “Music in Me” in the first week of January 2016 — right after getting her wisdom teeth pulled. The next month, the American Girl company flew her and her mom, Lea, to Nashville to meet the other girl songwriters and film them at the Bluebird.

Secrecy surrounded the Tenney project. Cosentino and the other songwriters couldn’t tell anyone about their work, but it turns out the company kept an even bigger secret from the girls.

Tenney’s debut last week with Logan Everett, the first boy doll in American Girl history, was a shock.

“We had no idea,” Cosentino said.

This story was originally published February 20, 2017 at 3:54 PM with the headline "Overland Park teen Kate Cosentino writes song for new American Girl doll."