Keys Attends First Sundance As Producer, Composer

The singer-songwriter is set to perform at three events during Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration on Monday. She’ll sing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl on Feb. 3. And meanwhile, she popped over to Park City, Utah, to debut her first film as executive producer and composer.

The 32-year-old entertainer is attending her first Sundance Film Festival to support “The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete,” which premiered Friday. Directed by George Tillman, Jr., the film tells the story of two young boys who survive the streets of Brooklyn on their own.

“It’s great because I love being part of bringing stories that you wouldn’t often hear to the world,” she said. “The fact that it was in my hometown – New York – that felt really good. The most important thing for me is that it looked and was so authentic.”

This was Keys’ first experience creating a film score, and she found the process enlightening.

“I think it really expanded me because it’s a beautiful collaborative process,” she said. “Being able to collaborate with (director) George (Tillman, Jr.), and he has such a cool feeling about music and is specific about how it related to each scene, and that was really interesting. There were some pieces that came really naturally to me and others that I had to kind of think more of how does that feel, what should that feel like?”

While she’s thrilled to experience her first Sundance festival, Keys confessed she’s constantly thinking about her Super Bowl performance.

“I’m really excited about it, I can’t even lie,” she said with a smile. “I have to rehearse it totally, as if it’s a brand new song, because it is actually a brand new song in the style that I’ll deliver it. I’m actually rehearsing it like a maniac.”