Teen getting clicks from social media singing competition
Laura Janowski is poised, articulate and sings like someone twice her age.
The 14-year-old’s husky voice and mature musical stylings have been making internet waves of late.
Her cover of Prince’s Purple Rain, posted on Facebook, has been shared 900 times and viewed 40,000 times.
“I think that singing is a language anyone can understand,” Janowski said during a recent interview at the family home in Dollard-des-Ormeaux. “You can hear the story behind it, even if you don’t understand the language it’s being sung in.”
Janowski is smack dab in the middle of the online singing competition One Take, which takes place on Facebook. Each singer has only one take to sing their song for the Facebook post. Views equal votes. For the quarter-finals, Janowski sang Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. She’s moved on to the semifinals and will be singing the blues tune Make it Rain, written by Foy Vance and sung by Ed Sheeran for the television series Sons of Anarchy. What happens next will depend on the number of views she garners and the opinions of One Take judges Alicia Moffet, Travis Cormier and Bobby Bazini.
“Marketing is key in the music industry and social media plays an important marketing role,” Janowski’s mom Valérie Assouline said. Assouline is a family lawyer and a Dollard city councillor. She was also a singer back in the day.
“I performed with Marie Denise Pelletier at Place des Arts when I was pregnant with Laura,” Assouline said.
You would think Janowski picking up the singing banner would be expected, but her vocal talents caught the family completely off guard. That’s because she barely spoke as a young child and never sang in front of the family. When she finally began taking singing lessons as a preteen, she refused to practise when the family was listening. She performed live for the first time when she was 12 years old, singing James Brown’s It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World.
“I’m not intimidated by a crowd,” Janowski said. “The minute I get onstage the music consumes me. I’m shyer singing in front of family than I am singing in front of strangers.”
Janowski’s vocal coach is Kevin Bazinet, the Season 3 winner of the television singing competition La Voix. Janowski appeared in La Voix Junior last year and made it to the battle round.
“I like Kevin because he leaves me the space to change the songs — to shape my voice,” Janowski said.
She is inspired by the originality of the voices of her idols Christina Aguilera, Rihanna and Michael Jackson, and she loves singing the blues. She’s performed with French-Israeli singer Amir and French singer Enrico Macias, and is booked to sing at the Canada Day celebrations at the Civic Centre in Dollard.
Janowski is equally dedicated to her studies at École secondaire Herzliah and plans to follow a unique career path.
“I want to be a surgeon. Actually, I want to be a surgeon who sings,” Janowski said. “When I’m in the operating room, I’ll calm the patients by singing.”