THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD Devere?Gittens covered his face with both hands when he was named winner of the third preliminary of the 2011 Richard Stoute Teen Talent competition last Sunday night.
He had beaten some of the better voices in the contest held at the Plantation Theatre. But it was the total package that Gittens brought to the stage that did it for him.
What he lacked in vocals, he made up for in stage performance and general likeable personality.
The diminutive lad seems to like what he is doing, always anxious to break into a dance routine that clearly helped him to gain 625 points.
He should have also scored well in the creativity and stage performance categories that gave a maximum 20 points each.
His treatment of Chris Brown’s Crawl and John Legend’s Ordinary People could, however, have been pitched higher and delivered with a bit more passion tocut out the flatness.
Sade Lampitt took second place with 603 points. Her numbers were Selena’s Dreaming Of You and Kelly Clarkson’s Because Of You. The latter was better done.
Lampitt identified with the passionate lyrics of the song. She modulated her voice well, soaring where necessary, and held the audience’s attention right through.
Cherish Maynard’s voice lent itself well to Adele’s Chasing Pavements. If she didn’t quite capture the low edgy soul of Adele’s voice, she stamped her own interpretation on the song, taking her audience on an emotional journey to hopelessness.
Maynard maintained her philosophical and spiritual vocals with Alicia Key’s If I Ain’t Got You, scoring an unfortunate 594 points for third place.
Special mention was made of other contestants Raheem Drakes, Ramario Adams and Adele Payne, who will be going on to the semi-finals with the top three.
The above have to look at the criteria: voice (40 points) and diction, creativity and stage performance (20 points each) and just work to improve.
Drakes has to loosen up and work the stage; Payne’s bluesy style is refreshing, but she has to bring the audience to her by digging deep in the lyrics and with eye contact.
Adams must also go easy on the dancing and sell his lyrics, especially in songs like The Gambler and Coward Of The County.
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