Ysabel Cattle named Aurora’s 2021 Teen Idol

July 2, 2021 · 0 Comments

Music has always been a passion for Ysabel Cattle.

The 15-year-old Aurora resident, who just finished Grade 9 at Richmond Hill’s Alexander Mackenzie High School for the Performing Arts, always has her eyes set on stepping stones on the road to fulfilling her dreams as an artist.

She found just that close to home at the 2021 Aurora Teen Idol competition where the first-time participant ultimately took home the crown.

Ysabel, along with first runner up Julia Romanelli of Richmond Hill, were presented with their sashes at Town Hall last week.

In an ordinary year, the finals for Aurora Teen Idol would have been near the culmination of Canada Day Celebrations. But, once again, this is not an ordinary year and the 2021 competition took place over Zoom – a different way to connect with an audience, but an intimate one nonetheless.

“I have always just loved to sing,” says Ysabel. “I saw the contest was running and thought it was a perfect opportunity for me to share my passion with everyone and a perfect venue. It was my first time really doing a singing competition and it was a really cool experience.”

Music and singing are passions Ysabel shares with her mother, who is also her vocal coach. Together they found a perfect song for the contest, one which combined Ysabel’s love of country music as well as pop: “Blue” by LeAnn Rimes.

“It’s such a unique song and sung so beautifully,” she says of the original track. “It really connected with me. I listened to the song, sang it through a bunch of times, talked to my siblings and parents just trying to breathe and relax, made some jokes to my parents, and by the time my turn came I just held my mom’s hand and sang through it as best as I possibly could and put my whole heart and soul into it.”

The Aurora Teen Idol competition wasn’t the first singing contest tackled by Julia. A recent participant in the Long & McQuade Singing Contest, she found the Aurora competition online and was thrilled to take part.

“The song I chose was ‘Anyone’ by Demi Lovato,” says Julia. “I have a lot of experience with that song and it really connects with me. I know Demi wrote it about her addiction, but personally I feel alone a lot and I feel people don’t really understand me and this song is about that, not being understood.

“Seeing all these other singers – they were all so good. I was literally so shocked. I saw the judges faces and thought, ‘Oh, my God, I’m actually doing good,’ and I definitely learned a lot from hearing other people singing. It just made me feel really humbled because they were so good.”

Ysabel had a similar reaction to the judges’ feedback and says her takeaway from the competition is to always keep working through challenging parts of a song and “instead of focusing on how it sounds, focus on how you feel singing it.”

“It is about just sticking to my heart and sticking to what I really want to do and not what others tell me to do; just singing because I love it and not because everyone is telling me to do so,” she says. “Just knowing how to breathe, sing the first few bars, it’s all going to be okay – you’re good just the way you are and to just go for it. I just want to perform and share my love of music with everyone and just get my name out there. I really just love to sing, share it with everyone and tell my story – and stories through song. It is really exciting just to be able to stand in front of a stage and perform.”

It remains to be seen just when Ysabel and Julia will have the chance to stand on stage and perform in front of live audiences given current health restrictions, but both are hopeful there will be many opportunities for them in Aurora in the year ahead.

Such opportunities could include performing at Town-run events, such as Movies in the Park, and potentially a revived Concerts in the Park series, should circumstances allow.

Steering those events is Shelley Ware, Special Events Coordinator for the Town of Aurora, who says she is eager for these young singers to show the community what made them rise to the top.

“Going virtual was different, but what we really saw amongst the contestants was a level of support you don’t see in the in-person setting,” says Ms. Ware. “Each person was cheering each other through Zoom and sending notes of encouragement. I found it actually to be a more bonding experience and I think we got to learn more about each of the individual participants than we would have otherwise in an in-person setting. In an in-person setting there is a stage and a distance between it and the audience. Virtually, there didn’t seem to be that distance.

“Both Ysabel and Julia were phenomenal and years beyond their age in terms of handling their vocal instrument. We really look forward to watching the Teen Idol and Runner Up at upcoming events when safe and able to do so.”

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter