This year's Australia got talent got a lot more interesting with Melbourne's eleven-year-old Sienna Katelyn.
In this era of pop culture, age is no bar, and most definitely, talents emerging here are worth noticing as they take a bow on national TV. Shows like 'Voice', 'Master Chef', and now 'Australia Got Talent’ has done precisely that by giving the power back to the audience to choose its artists and embracing the richly diverse community that exists right here in Melbourne.
So, when eleven-year-old Anglo-Indian Chennai girl Sienna Katelyn from Truganina took to the stage of AGT (Australia Got Talent) with her father, Mario, we at G'day India had to interview this pop sensation. Auditioning with bronchitis to the judges with an extensive song, ‘If I ain't got you’ by Alicia Keys, proved that she meant serious business and most definitely made it to the finals on the 20th of November.
Born to a family of musicians, especially father Mario, who came to Melbourne in 2003 and mother Diana, who came with her family in 1996, has been a significant contributor. Mario works in superannuation, and Diana works as a project manager; during weekends, they both rehearse with Sienna as she always wanted to be a singer as early as six years old. Emerging as a shy child, she would often record herself in her bedroom and show her videos to her parents; later, they would usually pay her to turn around when singing at family gatherings.
Sienna's final song choice, a gospel song, 'you say' by Lauren Daigle, is basically about her journey from self-doubt to self-confidence in believing in herself, winning the audience and a standing ovation from the judges. With Mario playing the guitar in the background. Though she lost to Acromazing dance group, if she had won AGT, Sienna would have donated some of her earnings to the Cancer Council because it's close to her heart, and she also used some of the money to start her career.
This young artist is already taking her acting and performance coaching at the Dan Hamill performance school and hopes to release her solo album one day.
Though inspired by her father, she also looks up to prominent voices within the soul and pop singers like Ariana Grande, Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys, Christina Aguilera and Billy Eilish. Sienna says that heaps of ginger and lemon tea are her secret to sounding like them and keeping her voice modulation intact.
If she hadn't taken to singing and, like any young artist, the reply would always be something creative, so if singing didn't choose her, she would have opted for fashion or interior designing.
Immaterial of the fact that she didn't win AGT, she's a winner, inspiring her nine-year-old sister Zoe and the entire nation with her talent.
We see a bright future for this young singer who's not only going to make Australia proud but also India. From all of us at G'day India, we wish this new pop sensation the best in life.
By Nandita Chakraborty
