Arts & Entertainment

Happy Birthday to Jackie Evancho

The singing-sensation from Pine-Richland turns 12 today!

As singing star Jackie Evancho turns 12 today, you have to wonder what she will wish for when she blows out her birthday candles.

Some young girls dream of becoming a singer, performing before thousands of fans.

Check. Jackie has done that, with her career taking a meteoric rise after she

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Others fantasize about appearing in a movie.

Check. Jackie was tapped to play the daughter of Robert Redford in The Company You Keep.

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Perhaps a young girl's dreams take her to Washington, D.C., to meet the president and perform a song about a day when hunger and war pass away.

Check.

So, you have to wonder what is next for the 12-year-old who has 134,000 "likes" on her Facebook page and more than 22,000 Twitter followers.

Performing for royalty?

Check.

Recording CDs that go to the top of Billboard's charts?

Check. Her and CDs did that. In addition, she recorded an hourlong TV program for The “Jackie Evancho: Dream With Me in Concert” with producer David Foster was recorded at the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, FL.

We could go on forever with this, but the point is: What do you do for an encore.

According to Jackie's Twitter account, she will go back into the studio this month to record.

Coming up are concerts in Alpharetta, GA, with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra on June 3; at the New Jersey Performing Art Center in Newark on June 8; and with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts on Aug. 25.

Just recently, Jackie performed concerts in California and Utah, as well as making an appearance in March at the celebrity-packed Muhammad Ali’s Celebrity Fight Night XVIII in Phoenix, which was hosted by country music star Reba McEntire.

Jackie even "walked the red carpet" with her brother, Jacob, for that event.

So it is hard to imagine how you can top the year when you were 10 and became a star on America's Got Talent or your 11th year when your dreams continued to come true.

Only time will tell ... happy birthday, Jackie!


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