|
Home | Articles | News | Links | About Us Wellborn girl wins national public radio talent contest By MILLARD K. IVES
The 12-year-old from Wellborn, who goes by "Lani," was voted this year's winner of the Prairie Home Companion Talent from Towns Under 2000 contest and awarded the Silver Water Tower Trophy. Lani, the youngest and only solo performer of six acts, also won a $1,000 prize. The show was broadcast Saturday night from the Town Hall Theatre in New York City to about 480 public radio stations across the nation. Listeners were able to hear the performers during the show and vote online. Audience members also voted. The sixth-grader performed the song "Nitey Night," which was written in 1947 by Jasper native Charlie Piliero, a friend of Lani's father, Dan. Pilero, 80, wrote the song at the end of World War II and resigned it to the bottom of an old shoe box until last summer, when he came across it while cleaning. The jazz-influenced song details a mother putting her daughter to bed and both praying for the father, who has been sent off to war. Saturday night was the first time the song was performed publicly. Lani generated the most enthusiastic applause after her performance. As the winner, she was invited back onstage to perform and sung a contemporary gospel song with her father. Lani began singing at age 3 and entertains audiences at schools, churches, retirement facilities, hospitals and nursing homes. On Friday mornings, Clark joins Lani and her brother, Tim, 9, who also attends Epiphany, to lead the musical portion of the weekly mass. She said the win was really a boost and now she feels confident about a musical career. It was the first time she performed out of this general area, she said. "I knew I my performances were pretty much appreciated here, but to get the kind of applause like that in New York was thrilling," she said after arriving home from New York last night. The host of the contest, Garrison Keillor, said the talent show was to showcase people from small towns, who usually find difficulty in being recognized. Wellborn has about 500 residents. "When you play in a small town, you are playing in front of people who know you much too well. Know all sorts of things about you," Keillor said in a release. "And one of the things that all of them are thinking as they watch you play is, ŒIf she were really any good, she wouldn't be here.' " The victory in the Big Apple began a few months ago, when one of her mother Victoria's friends suggested that Lani submit an audition tape to the radio program. Finding a place to put together a tape would be no problem because Lani was already doing some recording work at Donald Johns' Starlight Studio in Lake City. "She started early and missed all the baby talk, so she was only about a year old and she was singing the simple nursery rhymes," Dan Clark said. When you are 12 and successfully perform on a live, national program, what do you want to be when you grow up? "I'm too young to decide that right now," Lani said. "I don't know what I want to be." Lani said she plans on saving the money for a Mustang when she's old enough to drive. Tonight she will perform at Lake City Community College as part of a special program there. Staff Writer Karen Voyles of The Gainesville Sun contributed to this report. |
