Talk about perseverance and determination.
Marissa Pontecorvo auditioned for Idol 12 times over eight seasons. She was turned down every time.
She admits in an Idol video that she wasn’t keen on the idea of trying out again. But her father convinced her.
Turns out audition number 13 in Pittsburgh this year was the lucky one.
And judging from how Marissa did on the show, you have to think the judges at the previous auditions should have listened more closely.
Marissa made it all the way to group night in Vegas before being eliminated. Pretty heady stuff considering gals outnumbered guys by a margain of nearly two to one in Hollywood this year.
In her golden ticket interview, Marissa said she hoped the fact that she’s a musician, not just a singer, would help set her apart from other contestants.
In fact, she began studying as a musician at a young age, thinking she might become a classical pianist, according to her MySpace bio. At age 9, she won a young artist competition that earned her a performance at Carnegie Hall in New York.
She says she didn’t take her singing ability seriously until she was about 12. At age 14, she began leading the music ministry at her church.
She’s now 24, a singer-songwriter living in Staten Island, N.Y., and apparently performing as Marissa Corvo, with a shortened version of her last name.
Marissa is a graduate of the College of Staten Island and Tottenville High School — the same high school the produced fellow Vegas contestant Brielle Von Hugel.
Her day job is teaching choral music to children at Our Lady Star of the Sea R.C. Church, accoring to this article on Staten Island live.com.
She was something of a mystery contestant on Idol in that we saw very little of her, even though she advanced so far.
Marissa clearly intends that we hear more.
“I promise this is only the beginning of something MAJOR,” she wrote on Facebook Friday. “It’s like what the people were saying back when Pearl Harbor happened … They have woken up the sleeping giant.”
Interesting way to put it. You can hear more Marissa by heading to her YouTube channel or her MySpace page. She posted her own version of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” a couple days ago.
Or just listen to the Marissa originals below. Wow, very passionate performance of “Letting Go of Perfect.”
Editor’s Note: My profiles of American Idol contestants omitted five Vegas contestants, including Molly Hunt and Marissa. They’ve now been added. Coming later today: Josh Sanders, Amber Holcomb and Tenna Torres.
“Letting Go of Perfect”
“What I Don’t Need”
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