Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Mara Justine will be a contestant on the new season of American Idol.

Idol premieres March 11 with Katy Perry, Lionel Ritchie and Luke Bryan as the judges who determine which singers make it to Hollywood and which don’t.

Here’s more about Mara Justine.

She describes herself as a 16-year-old singer-songwriter, actor and dancer.

She’s four years removed from a Top 12 finish on Season 9 of America’s Got Talent, during which she performed Kelly Clarkson’s “Breakaway,” Jennifer Hudson’s “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going” and Pink’s “Perfect.”

The year before that, she was featured on Maury’s Most Talented Kids TV show.

In the summer of 2015, she released a seven-song, self-titled album that’s still available on Spotify and iTunes.

You can check out more recent covers on her YouTube channel. You’ll find one in which she meets and sings with former Idol judge Steven Tyler, who praises her vocal ability. Below, I’ve embedded her cover of “Fall for You.”

A student at Absegami High School in Galloway, N.J., Mara recently posed for a photo under a prayer tree in Little Tokyo and said the feeling she got from the messages on the tree reminded her of why she fell in love withmusic.

“That was to spread love, to make people feel something when they listen to me,” she writes. “To make people smile and to take them away from reality for a little while.”

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