Beau Dermott
Biography Beau Dermott
Beau Dermott
Something magical happens when 13-year-old Beau Dermott stands on-stage. She looks like any normal, rather shy young girl, but when she starts to sing Beau is completely transformed. The voice that emerges is not just beautiful but quite astonishing: pure and strong, soaring to the highest notes with grace and power and a maturity that belies her years.
“I’m not me any more, I’m somebody else. I feel like I am that character in that specific moment and that’s what I love so much about it. If you have a passion you can bring all the emotion into the song.”
“When I’m singing, I don’t know that anyone is there,” she confesses. “It’s only once it’s finished and I hear the applause that I realise. Just hearing the applause is amazing for me.” It is this special talent that led Dame Vera Lynn to choose Beau to perform at her 100th birthday celebration concert at the London Palladium earlier this year, and resulted in her signing with Decca. Decca executives were in the audience when she opened the show with Glad Rag Doll, a song that Dame Vera had sung when she herself was just a young girl.
Apart from the fact that it led to her signing with Decca, the concert itself was a thrilling experience for Beau: “I knew Dame Vera was not in the audience,” she says. “But it wasn’t until I came off stage that they told me that the Queen was. I was aware that there was somebody in the box but had no idea because it was a private visit.”
Beau first shot to fame last year when her electrifying audition in Britain’s Got Talent earned her the golden buzzer straight into the semi-finals. Singing Defying Gravity from the musical Wicked, Beau set the contest alight. The YouTube clip of her performance has so far racked up 24 million and still produces goosebumps!
International star Idina Menzel, who created the role on Broadway, tweeted: “OMG, you give me chills with your performance!” And Simon Cowell declared, after a standing ovation from judges and audience alike: “Five or ten years from now, we’re going to look back and say, ‘This is the moment we discovered a star.’”
Beau, who came 5th, was delighted to be in the final: “That was really cool, the best thing ever, because there were so many talented people and it was a tough competition. I was really happy just to be there, it was an amazing experience. In fact I’m glad the magician won because he was really, really lovely!”
Beau’s love of singing started very early when she saw a DVD of The Sound of Music: “I watched it on repeat again and again. I just loved the sound of Julie Andrews’ voice, and I’d sit on the floor and sing along. And I soon discovered I loved to sing for my own enjoyment.” And now she is thrilled that her passion for singing and musical theatre has led her to the opportunity to record some of the songs she loves. …
