Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Sophia Wackerman, a UCLA jazz student, at her audition for American Idol Season 18

Among the singers who have announced they auditioned is Sophia Wackerman.

Here’s more about Sophia.

* She’s a second-year student at UCLA, majoring in global jazz studies.

* In a UCLA artist spotlight, she says she was born in Australia, but moved to the U.S. at age 4. She considers Long Beach home.

* She grew up in a musical family. Her father was a drummer; her mother was a singer.

* She studied piano and theater and says she started dabbling with songwriting at a young age, though it wasn’t until she was high school that she started “digging deep into it.”

* Sophia was also part of a grand champion show choir at Los Alamitos High School and was named best female soloist competing with SoundFX at the Fame Show Choir competition in New York City.

* During an extended break between the end of high school and her first semester at UCLA, she recorded her debut single — the impressive “Stop Your Lying” — in her dad’s home recording studio. Check it out below.

* At UCLA, she is part of the ScatterTones, an a capella group. You can check out the group’s performance at the 2019 International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella here. Sophia has a solo.

* Sophia describes her own music as “honest” and a “rock, soul, pop fusion.”

* “There’s no way you can make a five- or 10-year place with music because it’s so unpredictable,” she says in that UCLA spotlight video. “My future plan is to do music in whatever way, shape or form I possibly can … and have my music touch people in healing ways.”

Keep checking back. More Season 18 profiles will follow.

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