One of the Vineyard’s brightest stars returned to the Tabernacle stage Wednesday. West Tisbury vocalist Siren Mayhew, formerly Katie, performed with The Cape Symphony.
She was just a cute teenager in a sundress, sitting in a diner with her family and some family friends. Until her mother Deborah and Deborah’s partner, Todd Follansbee, settled the bill, and then suddenly Katie Ann Mayhew was on her way across the street to prepare to sing in Symphony Hall.
As surely every Islander knows by now, Katie was in Boston Tuesday night to sing in the finals of the Boston Pops High School Sing-off. One of three finalists, she would be singing her original audition song, Being Alive, from Stephen Sondheim’s musical Company.
The Boston Pops had a “don’t call us, we’ll call you” arrangement with the more than 200 high school students vying for a place in the finals of the orchestra’s first statewide singing contest. So when the phone hadn’t rung by 4 p.m. Sunday, Katie Mayhew, a sophomore at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, was resigned to her fate.
Katie Mayhew sang twice at Symphony Hall in Boston yesterday, first in rehearsal and second as part of a competition for the Boston Pops High School Sing-Off.
Katie, 15, is one of 22 contestants in a statewide competition to be a singer with the Boston Pops this summer. They came from all over the state, from as far east as the Vineyard and as far west as Stockbridge. Each singer, aged from 15 to 18, was aspiring to be a winner. The grand winner will perform with conductor Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops as part of the Fourth of July concert and fireworks.
Katie Mayhew, 15, of West Tisbury is a semi-finalist in the Boston Pops Sing-Off, a Best of Broadway challenge. Katie is shown singing Monday night at the Symphony Hall in Boston. She is one of six semi-finalists, chosen that night out of 22 contestants from around the Commonwealth for her singing of the Broadway tune Being Alive. As a semi-finalist, she will perform with conductor Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops at the hall on either June 17 or 18. The number of singers will be culled down further to two and those two will perform with the Pops at Symphony Hall on July 1.
LONDON — Vineyard vocalist Katie Mayhew made her international debut at London’s Cadogan Hall, singing her signature Sondheim song Being Alive, which won her the 2008 Boston Pops high school sing-off and the notice of the British director who staged Wednesday night’s Inspiration Awards for Women ceremony.
