{"id":24166,"date":"2019-07-04T17:59:10","date_gmt":"2019-07-04T21:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=24166"},"modified":"2019-07-11T18:50:40","modified_gmt":"2019-07-11T22:50:40","slug":"meet-your-2019-aurora-teen-idol-nikita-riou","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/meet-your-2019-aurora-teen-idol-nikita-riou\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet your 2019 Aurora Teen Idol: Nikita Riou"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Adam Vanderkolff<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Standout performer\nNikita Riou took the stage confidently and won over the hearts of the audience\nand the judges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a beautiful\nsunny Canada Day celebration at Lambert Willson Park, where 100 people gathered\nto watch the Aurora Teen Idol competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surrounded by their\nfamilies, friends, and other audience members, the young performers presented\nthemselves confidently and put on a remarkable show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After auditions were\nheld in mid-June, only eight contestants were selected for the final event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The competition was\nstiff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order of\nperformance, the top eight included: Aarin Dsouza, who sang Celine Dion\u2019s\nAshes; Amelie Kolnik, who sang The A Team by Ed Sheeran; Irene Piorischin with\nher performance of All of Me by John Legend; Kiana Mirshahi with Tracy\nChapman\u2019s Fast Car; Nikita Riou performing Adele\u2019s All I Ask; Sasha Valerie\nMatta with Leonard Cohen\u2019s classic Hallelujah; and Vianna Ek performing Hero by\nMariah Carey. Unfortunately, the last finalist Alexandra Paton was unable to\nattend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The judges were\nlooking for; \u201cpitch, rhythm, tone, quality, diction, and presence,\u201d to make\ntheir selection, and they did a fantastic job determining the finalists given\nthe talent that was on display.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The four finalists\nincluded Emily, Nikita, Sasha, and Vianna.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hosting the event was\nthe 2018 Aurora Teen Idol winner Olivia Freeman, who did a great job\nintroducing and inspiring the contestants with a performance of her own. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the singing was\ndone, the audience was left eagerly waiting to hear the results. 13-year-old\nVianna Ek was announced the runner-up and it was 16-year-old Nikita Riou who\nwas presented with long-awaited recognition, and the Aurora Teen Idol sash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI felt incredibly\nnervous,\u201d said Nikita. \u201cIt\u2019s an honour, I\u2019m really happy. It was so exciting\nand a fun experience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nikita stated that her\nselection of Adele was easy adding \u201cI love Adele, she\u2019s my idol.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor and Aurora Teen\nIdol judge Tom Mrakas stated \u201cwhen you come out and watch the Teen Idol\ncompetition, you see how incredible the talent is in our community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nikita has a bright\nfuture in music as she will be making appearances at various events in Aurora\nand will be able to present her talents to even more people as she will be\nshowcasing her voice at several Town events in the twelve months ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re all\nproud to have the runner-up (Vianna Ek) and 2019 Aurora Teen Idol winner Nikita\nrepresent Aurora for the year,\u201d added Mayor Mrakas. \u201cWe\u2019re looking forward to\nher singing the national anthem at many events and some other songs along the\nway. Congratulations to all the contestants.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Standout performer Nikita Riou took the stage confidently and won over the hearts of the audience and the judges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/2019-07-04-08.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6hM","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-31 15:11:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}