Her audition: Lily Green, 16, of New York, N.Y., auditioned with Fleetwood Mac’s “Songbird” in a performance that was part of a montage package. Her performances — the iTunes version is excellent — landed her a spot on Team Adam.
Her background: According to Lily’s bio on The Voice website, music was part of her life even before she was born. Her mother was performing “Titanic” on Broadway while she was pregnant; her father was in a band. Lily and her sisters sang together as a family pastime. Her parents eventually split and remarried, but the new couples decided to keep the family together under one roof in what the bio calls a “somewhat unconventional unison” for eight years before Lily’s mom had to move because of work. Lily is now a student at the Professional Performing Arts School in Manhattan.
What the show didn’t show:
About that audition we missed, Lily says this: “My audition went really well. I was feeling so emotional while I was singing. When Adam turned around — and I know everyone says this, but I truly felt it — I felt a weight lift from my shoulders. I was filled with light and joy. At the end, I started crying happy tears, and Adam and Pharell came up and hugged me. It was a fantasy!”
Lily says “Songbird” is something she’s been singing since seventh grade. “I love it. I love to love, and I love to witness love. The song is light and beautiful, ethereal. It embodies many of the qualities that I love in my voice.”
At the Professional Performing Arts School, she’s focused mostly on classical music and says she loves the program and the maestro (Vagharshak Ohanyan). And she says the program is providing her lots of performing experience, including in the annual spring and winter concerts and in two annual soirees. “We’ve performed at the United Nations, and were part of the #Imagine project by Unicef,” she adds.
She has also performed at The Barrow Group, a New York theater company and school, with her mother and sister. “I haven’t done a ton of performing as a solo artist, just because, my life has been revolving around classical music for the past three years,” she says. “But I still write and sing my folk music everyday.”
While she prides herself on musical versatility, she says the genre she wants a career in is folk music. “It’s gentle, and peaceful. I’m a noisy person, outgoing, boisterous. So to have that contrast in my life is indispensable. It balances me out, I’m not me without it. I love to write folk music!”
She calls Joni Mitchell her idol and says she also inspired by the likes of Bob Dylan, Sufjan Stevens, Regina Spektor, Aimee Mann and The Beatles.
Lily says she auditioned “on a whim” after she and a friend spotted a notice for the tryouts somewhere. “I didn’t expect to be on the show, at all.”
On iTunes: Just her performance from The Voice.
Keeping up with Lily:
Twitter: @LilyMcGreen
Facebook
“Songbird” (The Voice iTunes version)
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