When Victory sings, everyone’s a winner
Lots of tots sing for their families, but how many 5-yearolds do it in front of hundreds of people and win their first talent contest? And how many 7year-olds would even try to sing one of classical music’s most difficult songs on national television in front of millions of people?
Victory Brinker, 8, did it on “Little Big Shots” and she made Melissa McCarthy cry.
“I like to make them cry,” Victory says.
Not from sadness, she’s quick to point out. She tries to inspire tears of joy, and usually succeeds.
She got me with “Ave Maria,” the Franz Schubert song sung at my wedding and millions of others. But not like this.
“You make us cry all the time when you sing,” her mother, Christine, tells her.
“We still cry,” says her father, Eric, the pastor of Impact Life Church in Greensburg.
Victory’s eyebrows jump in surprise. “Really?”
Her 10 brothers and sisters may be the only ones unfazed by Victory’s threeoctave voice, but that’s only because they hear it all the time. She sings every day, even when she’s not practicing. Even when she’s lying in bed in the room she shares with her sister, Eternity, 6.
“You can hear me singing at night?” she asks her mother, grinning.
The Brinkers adopted nine of their 11 children, including Victory, and Christine home-schools most of them. Four came from Guatemala, and one has special needs. All were open adoptions, and the children maintain relationships with their birth parents, if possible. Victory, their eighth child, was born in a large Midwestern city.
“We literally prayed for Victory,” Christine says. “We knew God was going to give us another one. He gave us the name Victory.”
One of the Brinkers’ favorite memories of recording “Little Big Shots” in Los Angeles in January occurred when Melissa, the host, asked Victory about being adopted.
“If you start praying, you could have 11 children, too!” she said.
The comedian and mother of two burst into laughter.
The NBC show that aired on April 19 also featured a clip of Victory skipping and dancing through the TV studio.
“That is so Victory,” her mother says. “She’s one of those kids that’s always happy.”
Victory, who rarely cried as a baby, can’t remember when she didn’t sing. When she was 3, she memorized every song on a CD by Mandisa, an African American gospel and Christian music singer.
At age 5, Victory wanted to know the hardest songs to sing. Her mother showed her a classical music piece on her phone, and Victory was hooked. She learned “Ave Maria” by watching YouTube videos and sang it at the Rising Star talent competition at Shady Side Academy in Fox Chapel. She won and has been winning at shows and festivals ever since, sometimes defeating adults.
Over the past two years, Victory has sung at Carnegie Hall and the Apollo Theater, both in New York City, and at several National Basketball Association games and the 2019 Pirates home opener. She sings in six languages, learning the words’ meaning with Duolingo and her mother’s help.
“She is obsessed with French,” Christine says.
Victory has her own website, www.victorybrinker.com, and pages on Facebook and Instagram. Some of the money she earns goes toward Slime — “the best thing in the whole world,” she says. She’s also saving to buy a Lego Friends Heartlake Grand Hotel play set.
Once a week, she takes lessons with Desiree Soteres, a soprano who lives in Squirrel Hill. Though some in the opera community oppose training children before they reach puberty, Desiree says she believes she can protect her young students and their voices by teaching them proper breathing and other techniques. She admits she was skeptical a 6-year-old could sing arias — until she heard Victory.
“I said, ‘OK, she has something’ …,” Desiree says. “Victory is just driven. She watches things and takes them in and works really hard on her own.”
Victory practices and does well in lessons, her teacher says.
“But when she gets in front of an audience, she takes it to the next level,” Desiree says.
During the pandemic, Victory’s voice lessons are done by Zoom videoconferencing. Eric also uses the app to preach to his congregation of about 100 members. He and Christine have recorded Victory singing a couple of new songs for an update episode that will air on a Sunday night soon on “Little Big Shots.”
Victory can’t wait for stay-at-home restrictions to lift so she can sing in front of a live audience. In the meantime, she’s planning to livestream a mini-concert at 7 p.m. Monday on her Victory Brinker Facebook and Instagram accounts.
“She is excited to sing for even one person,” her mother says.
At least no one will see you cry.