Inauguration, Super Bowl and Sundance: a busy time for Alicia Keys

The singer-songwriter Alicia Keys is scheduled to perform at three events during Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration today. She’ll sing the national anthem at the Super Bowl on February 3. And 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 on Friday. Directed by George Tillman, Jr, the film tells the story of two young boys on the streets of Brooklyn.

“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.”

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. “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 at her first Sundance, Keys confessed she’s constantly thinking about her Super Bowl performance.

“I’m really excited about it, I can’t even lie,” she said. “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.” – AP