Blackpool teen singing star Hollie is dreaming of success

Hollie Findlay, 13, and her family spend half of their year in Blackpool and the other half in the much sunnier surroundings of Kefalonia, Greece, where her parents own a property company.

However it was in Thornton, at Starlight Stage School, that Hollie was first told she had a talent for singing. And since September, she has been having weekly singing lessons over Skype.

The lessons have gone so well that she decided to apply for Teenstar – a competition for teen and pre-teen singers and dancers.

The winner will get to record and album and music video.

Hollie, who flew with her family all the way from Greece to Southampton, said: “When they told me I’d got through I was really happy.”

She sang ‘Love Yourself’ by Justin Bieber, which she finds ‘quite an easy song to sing’.

In the next round she will sing on stage in front of a live audience of around 500 people. She said: “I usually don’t get nervous until the last few days. But then I get really nervous.”

Her mum Frances added: “She has only done one show and that’s with the woman who does her vocal lessons.

“That’s when we saw how good she really was because it was an actual performance rather than singing in the shower or around the house.

“I’m not one to be particularly dramatic but I was wiping the tears away.”

Hollie said she dreams of becoming as successful as her idol Ed Sheeran. She will perform in the next round of TeenStar at Engine Rooms, Southampton, on Sunday, April 23.

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