Kaitlyn Doyle opted to sing an Italian classic as well as Christina Aguilera’s “Bounty” as part of her application to the 2015 High School Honors Performance Series at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
She made the recordings in a Lewiston studio and sent them to a selection committee.
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“Then I waited three or four months,” the senior at Oak Hill High School in Wales said last week.
Finally, she received confirmation that she had been accepted and will perform as a second alto with other high school finalists in the Honors Performance Series on Feb. 22 at Carnegie Hall.
Some 500 performers are selected from about 10,000 nominations, according to a press release from WorldStrides, an educational travel organization. Julia Given, a spokeswoman for WorldStrides, said five students from Maine were selected, including Abigail Shaw from Presque Isle High School. The names of the other three were not available last week.
Meantime, Doyle, 17, is busy raising about $3,000 – she’s more than halfway there – to fund the five-day experience. She’s also practicing for the role of Polly in “The Boy Friend,” the musical being presented by Oak Hill High School Drama Club in two weeks.
She performs classical songs with the high school’s select choir Voices of Color, and has been in the District III Honors Festival Choir in 2013 and 2014.
Doyle said she still works with John Corrie, who teaches musicianship labs, applied voice, and directs the Bates College Choir.
She was nominated to be part of the Carnegie Hall performance by John Neal, director of music at Oak Hill High School.
“She’s tremendous; she’s one of the best of my 35-year career,” said Neal. He has nominated other students for the honor, but Kaitlyn Doyle was the first to be selected. “It’s nice when a wonderful, deserving student gets the recognition.”
Kaitlyn Doyle is a dancer as well, taking instructions in ballet, tap and jazz with Mary Jane’s School of Dance in Lewiston and Turner. At school, she gets help from her sister, Kasey, who runs the lights for the music productions. There are 28 students are in the show.
In “The Boy Friend,” Kaitlyn Doyle gets to do a lot of dancing and singing as heiress Polly Brown.
“She sings, she dances, she does just about all of it,” said Lucy Rioux, artistic director for the show and the high school’s drama coach. “She’s a pretty talented little girl.”
Doyle has a voice that can be either alto or soprano. “Her technique is really good so she knows when to change from a chest voice to a head voice and she does it pretty flawlessly,” Rioux said.
Julie Andrews made her Broadway debut in that role in 1954, and Rioux said Doyle has a similar vocal range.
Kaitlyn Doyle said she plans to continue her education by majoring in either the music industry or music and sound recording at the University of New Haven in Connecticut.
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