Jackie Evancho, 10 years old singer with lovely voice

Love the cute 10 years old Jackie Evancho‘s beautiful voice. Here is a video of Jackie on TV last night.

Here is her audition.

Here are some other performances by Jackie.

P.S. I want to say to the people who accuse Jackie of lip-syncing, I feel sorry for you. She is 10 years old, lip-syncing is probably harder to get right than her singing it, and what parents in their right mind would tell their beautiful daughter to lip-sync.

And for those that are still not convinced and are cynical, try this: FremantleMedia, the company that produces America’s Got Talent and American Idol, has multi-billion dollars in these brands combine, so it will be total stupid for them to fake it on any one contestant and jeopardize the brands. (note: the Got Talent series is a format conceived and owned by Simon Cowell‘s SYCO company and I bet Simon is smart to not get his franchise into any silly trouble.)

P.P.S. Jackie‘s performance, as I discovered in the news, got me to watch the show tonight. I know she will advance for sure but it is a talent show and it is kinda fun to watch for a little bit. :)

She & Him perform on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson tonight! (July 26th)

She & Him perform on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson tonight (July 26th)! Here is their lovely “In the Sun“.

July 27 Update: Here is the performance last night.

Scott MacIsaac – Rose Bowl winner an easy pick for judges

I am so happy for Scott, grandson of a friend. The grandpa was deservedly proud. Congrats Scott.

I just heard it today, so it is news to me even it was from the March 22nd Calgary Herald, “Rosy future predicted for star of music fest – Rose Bowl winner an easy pick for judges“,

“Backstage, following the conclusion of the Stars of the Festival concert on Saturday at the Jubilee Auditorium, you couldn’t blame Scott MacIsaac for feeling, well, a little excited.

After all, the 17-year-old pianist had just walked off with the coveted Rose Bowl, annually awarded to the outstanding Calgary Kiwanis Music Festival performer.

[…] According to festival executive director Mary Ross, the decision to award the Rose Bowl to MacIsaac, a student of Marilyn Engle, was an easy one.

“Our senior piano adjudicator, Michel Fournier, was absolutely wowed by Scott,” Ross says. “He (Fournier) said, ‘You know this is a young man who’s going to be one of Canada’s leading performers for his generation.’ ”

MacIsaac, who performed the third movement of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s famous Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor in the Stars of the Festival concert, accompanied by Engle, has been studying piano since the age of six.

A member of the senior piano program at the Mount Royal University Academy of Music, where he has taken part in master classes given by such esteemed international artists as Anton Kuerti and Angela Hewitt, MacIsaac is no stranger to winning competitions.”

The Lady Gaga zero-awareness-to-ubiquity time-warp

For the record (emphasis added) from Adage, “Gaga, Oooh La La: Why the Lady Is the Ultimate Social Climber – Leveraging Digital Media and Creative Partnerships Makes Artist a Uniquely 2010 Pop Star”
By Andrew Hampp
Published: February 22, 2010

LOS ANGELES (AdAge.com) — As far as breakout musicians go, few artists have had quite the zero-awareness-to-ubiquity time-warp of Lady Gaga. And as far as brands go, few marketers of any kind have leveraged social media the way she has to drive sales of their core product — in her case, albums and digital singles.

Lady Gaga, with her army of nearly 2.8 million Twitter followers and more than 5.2 million Facebook fans, can move product. Since fall 2008, her digital-single sales have exceeded 20 million and her album sales hit 8 million, all at a time when no one under the age of 60 buys CDs anymore (see Susan Boyle breaking the record for highest first-week album sales last year). Now, she’s being courted by marketers to do the same for their products.

Gaga’s rapid ascent to the pop-culture stratosphere is often compared to Madonna’s, right down to their shared beginnings in the downtown New York club scene before their big record deals. But what makes Gaga’s star status, particularly in the marketing community, so uniquely 2010 is that she has achieved as many milestones (if not more) in 18 months than her idol did in nearly a decade. Madonna’s notorious endorsement for Pepsi in 1989 — cut short after her controversial “Like a Prayer” video aired on MTV — came seven years after the debut of her first single in 1982. Within a year of her out-of-the-box rise to fame in September 2008, Gaga had already lined up Virgin Mobile as a sponsor of her Monster Ball tour; created her own brand of headphones, Hearbeats by Lady Gaga, with record label Interscope; and landed her own (cherry pink) lipstick as a spokeswoman for Mac Cosmetics’ Viva Glam, benefiting Mac’s AIDS fund. And by January, she was tapped by Polaroid to become the brand’s creative director, hired specifically to create new products and inject life into a brand that hasn’t been hip for years — save for maybe a popular reference in Outkast’s “Hey Ya!”

Old school meets new media
How did a 23-year-old singer/songwriter achieve so much in so little time? Two words: social media. Sure, Gaga had a fair share of old-school artist development — radio play — to become the first artist to score four consecutive No. 1 singles from a debut album. But she’s also put a new-media spin on her distribution strategy.

The Canadian Tenors on Oprah today. Beautiful LIVE performance with Celine Dion! (with Oprah video)

This reporter had the great pleasure of listening to the The Canadians Tenors last June at Calgarian entrepreneur, philanthropist Brett Wilson‘s garden party. The Canadians Tenors’ voices are simply beautiful. And today, I’ve been told that they will appear on Oprah! Yes, Oprah! [6:29pm update: the Tenors gave a beautiful performance AND they got to perform with Celine Dion. And they will be singing at the Olympics. Good for them!]

As part of his entertainment industry investment, Brett has been backing the Tenors as a financial partner since the summer of 2008 and is rather pleased with their success over the past 18 months.

Now, as if appearing on Oprah is not enough, I’ve been informed that The Canadians Tenors will be also appearing on Dr. Phil on Friday, February 12th and then performing the American Anthem at the upcoming NBA All-star event on Sunday, February 14th.

Found this clip of The Canadians Tenors on Oprah today on YouTube. [HT CanadianTenors’ Tweet]

For the fans of CBC Dragons’ Den, Brett is known as one of the nicer Dragon and has a high percentage of his Dragons’ Den deals closed after due diligence.

Nadia Boulanger

Found something about Nadia Boulanger (wikipedia). This is a followup to my entry on Philip Glass.

Note that Nadia taught the likes of Quincy Jones, Philip Glass, Elliott Carter, and Aaron Copland.

Sweet Music of Summer

Out of the blue, a Dickie Dee tricycle showed up playing the sweet music of summer. And then this cute little girl showed up on cue by magic attracted by the music.