You might think a 12-year-old would be petrified about singing in front of four international superstars – Richard Marx, Melanie C, Ronan Keating and Kate Miller-Heidke – and a national TV audience on The Voice. But not Leyla Sabo.
“My blind audition, I was so nervous going onto the stage, and then, once I was singing, I was fine,” Leyla tells TV WEEK.
Leyla, who has turned 13 since filming her blind audition, comes from a musical family. Her mother, Annie, used to sing – “singing that wasn’t as good as Leyla’s,” Annie insists – and her uncles play guitar.
Leyla started performing when she was eight or nine and released her first original song when she was 10. The song, “Hard To Breathe”, was about loss.
“It was my family dog that passed away and it was really upsetting,” Leyla remembers. “I was really sad. And then I just wrote some lyrics and it became a song.”
The young Melbourne singer already has quite a few gigs under her belt. She recently supported Bonnie Anderson, who won Australia’s Got Talent when she was 12. She also sang at a local carols event last Christmas, where she got a taste of the fame she’s set to experience through The Voice.
“After I finished performing, I walked out and a bunch of people came running to me and I was like, ‘What?’” she remembers. “I did not expect that at all. But I really enjoyed it. It was mostly young people, and just seeing them inspired by me is so amazing. And I just love that feeling.”
Leyla says she sometimes feels older than 13.
“When I’m around my friends, I can feel pretty young. But then I always feel mature around people my mum’s age. And when I connect with musical people, I feel like I really become part of the older crowd.”
When she sings, Leyla says, she just feels “amazing”.
“Like, singing is my home,” she adds. “Like it’s all I do.”
Catch The Voice on Mondays and Tuesdays at 7.30pm on Channel Seven and 7plus.
