5 things to know about Surrey teen singer Sofia Evangelina
Credit to Author: Stuart Derdeyn| Date: Wed, 07 Aug 2019 18:13:04 +0000
Sofia Evangelina isn’t a household name yet. But the 16-year-old Surrey singer has her sights set on mega stardom. As her Instagram page states, her goal is “changing the world one song at a time.”
And the music industry part of the world is taking notice of the young musician, whose website is sofiaevangelina.com.
On July 14, Evangelina won the best album award at the Young Artist Academy’s 40th awards ceremony for Butterfly. Her 2018 independently released debut features a mix of covers by such artists as Nina Simone (Feeling Good), Bill Withers (Lean On Me) and originals such as This Is Your Song.
Since 1978, the Young Artist Academy has hosted Hollywood’s oldest youth awards and mirrors the Oscars in its peer voting membership voting structure. Among the past winners are Drake, Zendaya, Miley Cyrus and Vancouver’s Ryan Reynolds.
So Sofia is in good company.
On the phone from Los Angeles, where she and her mother and manager were wrapping up meetings, Evangelina (born Sofia Tchernetsky) talked about launching her second professional career, making music, life as a teen singer, actor and model, and more.
The sacrifices to pursue a performing arts career are well known to the children and parents who are involved. Everything from online education and lengthy working hours to challenges around having a social life is a problem to be overcome. But this young artist makes clear she’s not letting any of that get in the way of chasing her lifelong dream.
Here are five highlights of her discussion with Postmedia:
1. Career No. 2. “At age 14, I became the youngest member of the Canadian national ski team and competed in the World Cup championships in freeskiing and was ranked internationally and No. 1 in North America in 2017. It’s kind of a miraculous fortune to have had that career interwoven with my developing singing and acting career, but unfortunately it wasn’t possible to continue with being on the circuit competing and Skypeing with my manager, vocal coaches and others trying to get in time to record, and so on.”
2. Changing gears. “You can imagine that going from something that you have done every day from 6 a.m. until the end of the day that involves ski hills, Keiser training, trampoline, water and fitness training to something completely different was painful initially. But my “Momager” Milla Tchernetsky, who is my best friend and confidant, and I are building everything from scratch, our empire from the ground up. Doing that takes more stamina than I ever imagined, and it’s ironic that to do whatever it takes to make it in this industry is harder than to make it in extreme sports.”
3. Toe in Tinseltown’s lake. “It was on a break from a World Cup event last year that my mom — who is originally from Russia, but had lived a long time in Los Angeles where she attended American Film Institute — took me to the city to meet her friends and ‘dip my toes in the lake.’ In that one week vacation, we wound up filming five music videos with full cast, crew, locations and everything. It was at that point where we went from balancing to becoming fully committed to an entertainment career.”
4. Things to say. “My opportunity is now, my door is open, and I feel that there is so much I have to say to my generation, for my generation. The This Is Your Song video (about overcoming bullying) has already had impact and we’ve been contacted by both kids and also parents in tears saying that it really moved them.”
5. Epic brand new material. “It’s great to talk about the things in the past to know where I’m coming from and where I’m evolving from. But I have just finished two new singles, which are at a completely new level and in a new ballpark. My brand is coming to fruition and my voice, my message are coming to stunning new levels collaborating with producer named Roy Hamilton III (American R&B producer known for his work with Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, ’N Sync, and others). I can’t be more excited about these tracks dropping and really identifying what I do.”
As she works on the followup material to Butterfly, Evangelina is also starting to shoot her first lead role in an independent horror feature where she plays “some kind of angelic force and that’s all I can say about it.”
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