America’s Got Talent Bianca Ryan In Semi Finals Finally
Bianca Ryan chose to seek fame as a torch singer, and it’s all the more impressive that she’s all of 11.
The Mayfair girl, who soon starts sixth grade at School Lane Charter School in Bensalem, will sing again tomorrow night on the NBC show America’s Got Talent (8 p.m., Channel 10), where she’s in the semifinals. Phone lines will open after the show, and she’ll be back Thursday for results. Tomorrow’s song is “Piece of My Heart” by Janis Joplin.
Bianca’s first appearance, on June 28, has turned into one of the most popular videos on YouTube.com, the video archive part-owned by NBC.
Bianca stepped onstage in a black-and-white dress her father bought her at Macy’s and belted Jennifer Holliday’s “And I Am Telling You” from Dreamgirls, blowing away the judges, especially Brandy. Piers Morgan, the grumpy judge, told her: “Change your hair. Change your dress.”
Bianca’s father, Shawn, a touring musician who gave up his career after Bianca was born, says this fame thing was her idea. In early ‘04, “she asked me to bring her to an audition of Star Search in New York. I said, ‘What are you going to do when you get there?’ ”
Sing, she said. He knew she’d been singing since she was little, but he asked if she could sing well. “I’m not bad,” she replied. She got two callbacks and was asked to be on the show.
She lost, but came back shortly after to win a trip to Disney World in a talent contest sponsored by WOGL-FM (98.1). She followed that with two appearances on Amateur Night at the Apollo and an appearance on the TV show Showtime at the Apollo.
Bianca, accompanied in California by her mother, Janette, says she likes R&B and gospel and counts Mariah Carey, Celine Dion and Patti LaBelle as inspirations.