Cranberry teen to sing anthem
CRANBERRY TWP — A township girl will sing the national anthem before the Pittsburgh Penguins game on Sunday.
Jordyn Walker, a senior at Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School, was selected from a pool of 10 contestants for the chance to sing at the preseason game against the St. Louis Blues. She'll perform at 8 p.m. Sunday at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex.
“I'm really excited,” Jordyn said.
Jordyn is no stranger to the stage, but this is her first performance that will be on national television, her mother, Dawn Walker, said.
She's always looking for performance opportunities online through Backstage.com, a platform for actors and actresses to find audition opportunities. This time her mother saw this audition and sent in a tape for Jordyn without telling her.
“A week later she called me and said, 'You were selected as a finalist,'” Jordyn said.
Candidates were required to submit a link to a YouTube video showing a solo performance of any song, and 10 finalists were selected based on those submissions. The final competition took place Sept. 6 at the Hard Rock Café in Pittsburgh.
Contestants sang before an audience and five celebrity judges including Jeff Jimerson, who regularly performs the national anthem at Pens home games.
Jordyn made it into the top three for the championship round and had to sing the national anthem.
“It was a little bit nerve-racking, especially singing in front of Jeff Jimerson,” she said.
Singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” unaccompanied is challenging, but Jordyn said she's ready. She began taking voice lessons when she was 7, and started doing musicals when she was 10.
Jordyn spent the summer in New York City at Pace University's summer musical theater program. She's also a member of the Richard E. Rauh Conservatory at Pittsburgh Musical Theater.
