{"id":26836,"date":"2020-06-25T09:01:09","date_gmt":"2020-06-25T13:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=26836"},"modified":"2020-07-02T19:32:40","modified_gmt":"2020-07-02T23:32:40","slug":"alessia-bozzo-named-2020-aurora-teen-idol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/alessia-bozzo-named-2020-aurora-teen-idol\/","title":{"rendered":"Alessia Bozzo named 2020 Aurora Teen Idol"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Alessia Bozzo dreams of being on Broadway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rehearsing virtually for an upcoming production of the\nmusical Grease in Vaughan, presently slated for the end of this summer, the\n14-year-old St. Jerome Catholic Elementary School student took one more step\ntowards her goal last week by securing the crown in Aurora\u2019s 2020 Teen Idol\nCompetition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alessia received her sash at Town Hall last week after\nvying for the title with a number of local girls through a capella auditions\nheld over Zoom earlier this month before a panel of expert judges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aurora\u2019s Teen Idol finals are usually held as one of the\ncentrepieces of the Town\u2019s annual Canada Day Celebrations at Lambert Willson\nPark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With celebrations going virtual this year in light of the\nCOVID-19 pandemic, event organizers had to employ some out-of-the-box thinking\nto ensure the show went on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I started my audition, I had heard all the other\ngirls singing because I was fourth,\u201d says Alessia, recalling what was going\nthrough her mind as each contestant waited their turn on the Zoom call. \u201cI was\nnervous because most of them were really good and I thought, \u2018this is going to\nbe a repeat of last time.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alessia is no stranger to the Aurora Teen Idol competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, it is something of a family affair with her\nsister making the finals in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI did this a couple of years ago \u2013 my sister got past,\nbut I didn\u2019t, so I took a break between the years, really worked hard on my\nsinging and started taking professional lessons,\u201d says Alessia. \u201cI did shows\nand stuff because a lot of things went on in my personal life and music just\ngot me through it. I came back this year looking for something to do during\n\u2018Corona\u2019 and this is really cool.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keeping her Broadway dreams firmly in her sights, Alessia\nauditioned with a selection from the musical Anastasia. She connected deeply\nwith the song, she says, but, given her last turn at the microphone in previous\nyears, she was cautious with her optimism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was preparing myself to lose,\u201d she recalls with a\nchuckle. \u201cMe and some of the other girls were talking over the chat, telling\neach other how good we were, but the day after was the most nerve-wracking\nthing for me ever. When I got the email \u2013 oh, my God, I was freaking out and it\nwas really fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy sister was really proud of me. She has been my\nbiggest supporter when it comes to music, other than my dad. She was the one\nwho started singing and got me into it. During [my time as Teen Idol] I can say\nI was able to accomplish something, something I tried hard enough and I proved\nmyself wrong!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also going the distance in the 2020 Aurora Teen Idol\ncompetition was runner up Shizuka Watanabe, 17, a student at Dr. G.W. Williams\nSecondary School.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shizuka\u2019s family encouraged her to try out for this\nyear\u2019s competition after spending some of her quarantine time singing around\nthe house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy mom was like, \u2018You sing a lot around the house. Why\ndon\u2019t you do something with your singing?\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cI didn\u2019t really expect a\nlot from it, but I thought it would be a fun opportunity, so why not? The song\nI sang was I\u2019d Rather Be Me from Mean Girls on Broadway. When I first heard the\nsong, I really liked it. I never really looked into the lyrics, but later on,\nwhen I did, I found it really resonated with me. It sends out a pretty good\nmessage and the message I am trying to send up is I don\u2019t care what you want\nfrom me; I will be what I want to be and I won\u2019t shape myself to what you want\nme to be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As she handed out the sashes to Alessia and Shizuka last\nweek, Shelley Ware, Special Events Coordinator for the Town of Aurora, who\nhosted the 2020 audition round, said despite not being able to spread word\nabout the competition through schools, there was a significant uptake from\naspiring singers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDoing it on Zoom was a new experience for us, but it was\nreally, really great. It seemed more intimate because we did a dry run the\nnight before so the contestants got to talk to each other the night before,\ntested out mikes and everything,\u201d she says. \u201cFor me, it is always a special\nexperience, but I am so thankful I am not a judge because it is splitting hairs\nbecause they were so talented. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe would love to have an in-person competition [in the future] but each of them were giving each other advice and helping them out and it really made it feel like a team effort.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alessia Bozzo dreams of being on Broadway. Rehearsing virtually for an upcoming production of the musical Grease in Vaughan, presently slated for the end of this summer, the 14-year-old St. Jerome Catholic Elementary School student took one more step towards her goal last week by securing the crown in Aurora\u2019s 2020 Teen Idol Competition. Alessia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":26838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/2020-06-25-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6YQ","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 14:54:27","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\/26836","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=26836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}