Idol Chatter & Voice Views

On The Voice, the finalists are typically the only contestants who get to record and release a single at the end of the show.

In Season 8, there was one lucky exception: Mia Z, the 16-year-old from the Pittsburgh area who consistently impressed the show’s judges with her range and with her passion for singing the blues at such a young age.

Mia made the show’s Top 12 before being eliminated. That very night, she got word that “Pharrell wanted to do a song for me.”

So she and her mom headed off to the recording studio to work with Pharrell. And a song called “Child” was born, written specifically for Mia by the superstar coach.

Talk about a nice consolation prize.

The result: Two weeks after the song was released, Mia’s single is still in the Top 20 on the iTunes’ blues chart.

“The lyrics were based on how I was feeling and what I thought about my experience on the show,” Mia says. “I felt very blessed — ‘my cup runneth over’ — and ‘I ain’t mad’ at all about the outcome. He referred to me as so young ’16’ and what an experience, and that I was merely still a ‘child.'”

Doubtful it will be the last music we get from the talented teen. She says she’s starting to post more originals on her YouTube channel — you’ll already find three — and plans to do the same on her recently revamped website.

On The Voice, Mia sang covers, of course; her version of “Ain’t No Sunshine” cracked the Top 50 on iTunes’ overall singles chart.

But when she’s performing live, Mia stresses that she sings only originals. And catching her live shouldn’t be a problem if you’re in the Pittsburgh area.

She’s wrapping up her sophomore year at Kiski Area Senior High School this week — she also attends Northern Westmoreland Career & Technology Center for training in cosmetology — and already has more than a dozen shows lined up for the summer months.

She calls that busy schedule “pretty typical” because she was performing with her band for two years prior to The Voice. “So I have performed at most of the venues already with the exception of a few new ones thanks to my exposure on The Voice. I have always done charities and benefits, so a lot of my shows continue to be centered around various causes.”

That’s the case for a June 18 “Who’s Your Daddy” show at the Pittsburgh Winery to raise funds for the Myasthenia Gravis Association of Western Pennsylvania. The association has a treatment and advocacy center for families dealing with the neuromuscular disease.

The show features fathers performing with their talented children. Well, in Mia’s case her band includes a pair of relatives, her mother on keyboards and her uncle, Jay Zanotti, on electric guitar.

As for The Voice, she says she’ll always cherish the friendships she made; remember, she was a teammate of two other very talented teens, Koryn Hawthorne and Season 8 winner Sawyer Fredericks.

because of her show connections, she got to record a cover of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” with Season 7 standout Luke Wade that will be used during the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s 2015-16 fundraising campaign. She isn’t sure when that song will be released.

“The benefit for my music was to let people know I have my own style, my own music that I would just love to share with the world,” Mia says. “And that I know what I want to do and exactly what kind of music I want to sing and perform. I felt the show gave me such a great opportunity to present that.”

If you haven’t heard it yet, you can check out “Child” at right.