American Singer Jackie Evancho: BioGraphy, Lifestyle & Career
Jacqueline Marie Evancho (/iːˈvæŋkoʊ/ ee-VANG-koh; born
April 9, 2000) is an American classical crossover singer who gained wide
recognition at an early age. Since 2009, she has issued a platinum-selling EP and
eight albums, including three Billboard 200 top
10 debuts. She has also been the subject of three solo PBS concert
specials.
Between 2008 and 2010, Evancho entered talent competitions,
sang the US national anthem at a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game, issued
her first album, Prelude to a Dream, and attracted interest
on YouTube.
In 2010, at the age of ten, she gained wide notice with her 2nd-place finish in
the fifth season of America's Got Talent. With the 2010
holiday release of her O Holy Night EP,
Evancho became the best-selling debut artist of 2010, the youngest top-10 debut
artist in US history and the youngest solo artist ever to go platinum in the
US. In 2011, her first full-length album, Dream
with Me debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200
chart, and she became the youngest top-5 debut artist in UK history. Billboard ranked
Evancho the top Classical Albums Artist for 2011. Later that year, Evancho
released a full-length holiday album, Heavenly Christmas, and became the youngest
person ever to give a solo concert at Lincoln
Center in New York City as part of her first concert tour.
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| Jackie Evancho |
In 2012, Evancho released Songs from the Silver Screen, her
third top-10 album debut. In 2013 she headlined benefit concerts at Carnegie
Hall and elsewhere. She also appeared in the 2013 Robert
Redford film The Company You Keep and
modeled for Guess Kids clothing. Later album releases include Awakening (2014), Someday at Christmas (2016), Two Hearts (2017)
and The Debut (2019, her eighth consecutive
release to reach No. 1 on the US classical albums chart). In 2017, Evancho
performed the US national anthem at the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump and
became the youngest person ever to perform a concert series at Café Carlyle. She has given concert tours in support
of each of her studio albums. Evancho appeared in 2020 as a contestant on The
Masked Singer.
Family and Early Life
Evancho was born on April 9, 2000, in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, to Lisa and Michael Evancho. Her father operated a video
security business until 2010. She has an older transgender sister
Juliet, a younger brother Zachary, and a younger sister Rachel. She
was raised in a suburb of Pittsburgh in a Catholic family. Evancho
began her education in the Pine-Richland School District, but
at various times, after her career began, she received online schooling. She
attended Pine-Richland High School, graduating
in 2018.
After Evancho saw the film version of the
musical The Phantom of the Opera as
a young girl, she began singing the songs at home. Her parents have
stated that they did not recognize that her voice was unusual until her first
talent competition, which she entered just before her eighth birthday.
In
the competition, Kean Idol, Evancho finished in second place. She
began taking voice lessons and singing at events, churches and
nursing homes, mostly in Pennsylvania. She also started a YouTube channel, sang
in the Children's Festival Chorus of Pittsburgh (now Pittsburgh Youth Chorus)
during its 2008–09 season, and performed the title role in a 2009 school
musical version of Little Red Riding Hood.
In 2009, Evancho competed in Las
Vegas in the 15th annual USA World Showcase Talent Competition, where
she finished in second place. At the 2009 Kean Idol contest, she was again
runner-up. In other 2009 talent contests, she won the Golden Ribby
Award – WonderworldTV and the Talent Quest TV Show
(both in Massachusetts). Also in 2009, she sang "Ave Maria" in composer and
conductor Tim Janis's PBS television
special "Celebrate America" and performed in other concerts and
TV shows with Janis, who sought her out after seeing her on YouTube. She
made various singing appearances around Pennsylvania in 2009 and 2010.
CAREER
David Foster and Prelude to a Dream
Evancho first caught record producer David
Foster's attention in 2009. She was selected for the regional
semifinals of his "Hitman Talent Search Contest", finishing as
runner-up, and in October 2009 she sang in the "David Foster &
Friends" concert at the Prudential
Center in Newark, New Jersey. In November 2009, Evancho
released her independent debut album, Prelude to a Dream. The album featured
mainly covers of classical crossover songs such as "Con
te partirò", "The Prayer",
"To Where You Are", "Concrete
Angel" and "Amazing Grace".
It debuted on the Billboard 200 at
No. 121, and at No. 2 on the Billboard Classical Albums chart,
in August 2010, after Evancho's first performance on America's Got Talent. Evancho's
parents withdrew the album later that month, citing Evancho's vocal progress
since its release.
America's Got Talent
After two earlier unsuccessful auditions for the show, Evancho
was accepted as a contestant on the fifth season of NBC's America's
Got Talent (AGT) by placing first in its 2010 YouTube
competition. On August 10, 2010, Evancho performed the aria "O mio babbino caro" in the show's
quarter-final round. The judges' reactions were effusive. Afterwards,
commentators queried whether her performance had been lip-synched. On
the next evening's live show, Evancho sang an impromptu voice exercise to
demonstrate that the broadcast was of her live voice. In an interview,
judge Howie Mandel addressed the issue: "What
people are ... really saying [is] that it's really too good to be true."
Her semifinal performance was "Time
to Say Goodbye". She advanced to the Top 10 round, where she
performed "Pie Jesu" from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem and
was voted into the Final 4. Pittsburgh leaders declared the following week
"Jackie Evancho Week". Her final competition performance, on
September 14, 2010, was of Gounod's "Ave Maria". The following evening at
the AGT season finale, Evancho sang "Time to Say
Goodbye" together with guest artist Sarah
Brightman; then Evancho was announced as the runner-up, finishing
second to singer Michael Grimm. Many viewers and
commentators felt that Evancho should have won, and Grimm expressed
surprise at the outcome.
The show brought Evancho wide exposure to
American audiences, as up to 16 million viewers watched her performances. The
finale show was AGT's highest-rated episode in three years. She
was a guest on The Tonight Show a week
after the finale, where she sang and gave her first late-night interview
with Jay
Leno. Evancho was featured and interviewed in the 2013 book Inside
AGT: The Untold Stories of America's Got Talent.
Later in 2010, Evancho performed in 10 cities with
the America's Got Talent: Live Tour, signed a record deal
with SYCO music
and Columbia Records, and performed in Las Vegas
with David Foster. From June 2010 until mid-2011, Evancho coached
with Yvie Burnett, who has worked with other singers
appearing on AGT.
ASource: WiKi
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