2011-06-05

jackie evancho


Early life
Evancho was born to Michael and Lisa Evancho. She has an older brother Jacob, a younger brother Zachary, and a younger sister Rachel. She resides in Richland Township, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
She started singing when she first watched the musical The Phantom of the Opera on DVD. Her mother heard Evancho singing songs from the musical and allowed her to enter the 2008 Kean Idol, a local talent contest. She sang "Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again", finishing, on the cusp of her 8th birthday, as first runner-up; the winner was 20 years old. Eventually Evancho participated in other talent contests and started a YouTube channel. Jackie began taking vocal lessons for a short period of time when she was 8, in June 2008, after her success in the 2008 Kean Idol contest. She was also a member of the Children's Festival Chorus of Pittsburgh during its 2008–09 season.

Evancho competed in Las Vegas in the 15th annual U.S.A. World Showcase Talent Competition in early 2009, in which the winner received $100,000 and the opportunity to create a demo CD. Jackie was invited to perform at the U.S. Open Tennis Championships in New York City, but due to scheduling conflicts with America's Got Talent, she could not attend.


Career
Prelude to a Dream
In November 2009, Evancho released her independent debut album called Prelude to a Dream. The album featured mainly covers of songs such as Andrea Bocelli's "Con Te Partiro" and "The Prayer", Josh Groban's "To Where You Are", Martina McBride's "Concrete Angel", and a cover of "Amazing Grace" among others. The album debuted on The Billboard 200 at #121 on the chart dated August 28, 2010. It also debuted at #2 on iTunes and Billboard Classical Albums Chart. Prelude to a Dream is no longer available as of September 2010. Her father has given the following reason for the withdrawal:

    Because the CD was recorded about a year and half [sic] ago and her current voice no longer sounds like what it did then [due to vocal maturity...], we decided to withdraw Prelude to a Dream and will be concentrating on new material as part of her progress.

It has become such a collector's item that copies of the CD have received final winning bids of over $1,500 on eBay auctions.
America's Got Talent

Jackie was accepted as a contestant on the fifth season of the America's Got Talent TV show by placing first in a YouTube competition sponsored by the television show. On August 10, 2010,[16] Evancho performed "O mio babbino caro" by Giacomo Puccini. The aria is also on her debut album. She received a standing ovation after her performance, and she was awarded a trip to Universal Studios Florida for receiving the most fan votes from the submissions to the show from YouTube. After Evancho's performance, there were online accusations that her performance had been lip-synched. One judge, Howie Mandel, requested that Evancho sing a random voice exercise on the next evening's live show as proof that it was her voice that was heard. On that episode, it was also revealed that she had advanced to the semifinal round.

Her semifinal performance was Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman's "Time To Say Goodbye". She advanced to the Top 10, where she performed "Pie Jesu" by Andrew Lloyd Webber and was voted into the Final 4.

Her final competition performance was her rendition of Charles Gounod's "Ave Maria" on September 14. On September 15, the season finale, Evancho performed "Time To Say Goodbye" with Sarah Brightman. At the end of the episode, Michael Grimm was announced the winner, and Evancho came in second place. Evancho performed in 10 of the 25 cities scheduled for the America's Got Talent road show.
O Holy Night

Jackie's newest work with Columbia Records is the CD/DVD entitled O Holy Night. It was released on November 16, 2010 and reached rank #1 on Amazon's bestsellers in music during pre-orders on October 19, 2010. It was ranked #3 for the entire year 2010 on Amazon."O Holy Night" debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200, making her the top-selling debut artist for 2010, and the youngest female solo artist to debut in the top 10. Jackie also debuted at #1 on Billboard's Classical Albums Chart. The album has sold 381,000 copies in its first two weeks. 239,000 copies were sold in its first week and 142,000 in its second week. On December 10, 2010, the album was certified platinum by the RIAA with an excess of a million copies in the US,[31] making her the youngest solo artist to go platinum. In Canada, it debuted at #1 on the Canadian Classical Albums Chart.





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