Grace VanderWaal

Early life and music

VanderWaal was born near Kansas City, Kansas, to Tina and David VanderWaal, who lived in Lenexa at the time. The family later moved to Suffern, New York. Since winning America's Got Talent, VanderWaal has been home-schooled and enrolled in online courses.

VanderWaal began composing her first songs at age three, using a wireless microphone. As a preteen, she found songwriting inspiration by watching movies and trying to imagine what a character was feeling, and "what it would be like if I were them, and wrote a song." She was inspired to learn the ukulele after watching a family friend play and seeing a Twenty One Pilots video on YouTube. She then bought one, using money she had received for her 11th birthday, and watched more videos to teach herself how to play. She has also played the saxophone in her school's marching band. After learning to play the ukulele, VanderWaal began to perform during open mic events at small venues near her home and to study music theory. In July 2016, after her audition on AGT, VanderWaal performed at the Lafayette Theatre in Suffern and at the Ramapo Summer Concert Series at Palisades Credit Union Park.

VanderWaal has written original songs (including those she has sung in competition) and recorded them, accompanying herself on ukulele, for her YouTube channel, Oh Never mind it's just me. The channel also includes her cover versions of popular songs. Julia Lennox of AndPop.com reviewed 15 of VanderWaal's covers, praising her arrangements, vocal delivery, musical taste, and "the combination of sass, attitude and confidence she brings to every cover". Her Instagram account has more than 1.6 million followers.

She includes among her musical influences such artists as Jason Mraz, Twenty One Pilots and Katy Perry.

2016: America's Got Talent

On the June 7, 2016, broadcast during the eleventh season of NBC's AGT, VanderWaal auditioned with her original song, "I Don't Know My Name", and was Howie Mandel's "golden buzzer" act. Simon Cowell called VanderWaal "the next Taylor Swift." Brittany Spanos in Rolling Stone magazine termed the song an "emotional, catchy, quirky tune". VanderWaal continued to perform only original songs on the show, including her next performance at the quarterfinals on August 23, 2016, titled "Beautiful Thing", a song written for her sister; USA Today characterized VanderWaal's voice as "endearingly croaky". Others have called it "raspy". For the semifinals on August 30, she performed "Light the Sky", and for the September 13 finals, she sang "Clay", a song about dealing with bullies. Lindsay Peoples wrote for New York Magazine: "The songs she wrote and performed on AGT were not only catchy but emotional and unique to her own sound, a mix of raw and folk". AGT's videos of the four songs have accumulated a total of more than 70 million views. Her audition video was ranked as the No. 5 trending YouTube video of 2016.

VanderWaal again performed "I Don't Know My Name" for the September 14 finale episode, then introduced a performance by Stevie Nicks, who compared her style with VanderWaal's and said, "[W]e like to be a little different ... and not like anybody else. She's got it. Whatever happens, Grace is going to the top." At the end of the broadcast, VanderWaal was announced as the season 11 winner. She is the second female winner and second child act winner in the show's history.

Post-America's Got Talent

Soon after winning AGT, VanderWaal revealed her plans to use part of her winnings to make a donation to charity and to buy a tree house for herself and her sister. VanderWaal was a guest on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in September 2016, and she headlined four sold-out concerts in the PH Showroom at the Las Vegas Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in October, performing with other AGT finalists. VanderWaal headlined the America's Got Talent Holiday Spectacular in December on NBC, where she performed her arrangement of "Frosty the Snowman".

VanderWaal signed a recording deal with Columbia Records in September 2016, and began recording sessions in October for her debut EP, Perfectly Imperfect, which was released on December 2, 2016. There are five songs on the EP, including all four of VanderWaal's original songs from AGT and another original, "Gossip Girl". The recording is produced by Greg Wells. A Walmart version features one additional song, "Missing You (Coffeehouse Version)". The artwork for the EP was created by VanderWaal's sister Olivia.

The EP debuted on the Billboard 200 albums chart at No. 9. Its lead single, "I Don't Know My Name", debuted on Billboard's Digital Song Sales chart at No. 37 and on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart at No. 24. Another song on the album, "Light the Sky", is featured as background music in Google's "Year in Search 2016" video. Billboard magazine praised VanderWaal's vocals, finding them "reminiscent of a Taylor Swift-Regina Spektor hybrid". Brianna Wiest of Teen Vogue wrote: "The EP takes you through Grace's range, touching on issues that are all-too-well-known for young people, as well as soul-stokingly beautiful medleys that almost anyone could relate to. ... [W]e see ... her ability to master both a softer, vowel-breaking folk tone as well as push through a serious power-ballad by the end. It's rare that you see both at once, but that's part of the magic of Grace's sound: it's at once completely new, and totally unexpected." Lyrics videos of the five songs from Perfectly Imperfect were released on VanderWaal's YouTubeVEVO channel and have accumulated a total of more than 15 million views.

VanderWaal promoted the EP with a series of appearances and performances. In November 2016, she performed "Light the Sky" and "Riptide" at halftime during a New York Knicks game at Madison Square Garden in New York City, and "I Don't Know My Name" in the 2016 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, on NBC's Today show and at the Christmas tree lighting at South Street Seaport, in New York City, where she also sang "Light the Sky". In December, she sang "I Don't Know My Name" on The Wendy Williams Show, at Cyndi Lauper's annual holiday fundraiser at the Beacon Theatre (where she also duetted with Lauper on "True Colors"), on CBS's The Talk, and at Z100's Jingle Ball Tour 2016 stop at Madison Square Garden. In reviewing the last event, Jon Caramanica of The New York Times commented: "One of the loudest receptions of the night was for Grace VanderWaal, a precociously thoughtful 12-year-old singer-songwriter-ukulele player". Later that month, VanderWaal returned to NBC's Today Show to sing her song "Light the Sky".

2017 – present

In January 2017, VanderWaal sang "I Don't Know My Name" on Live with Kelly. She performed atop the Empire State Building for engaged couples at the building's Valentine's Day lighting event in February and is recording a new album. In March 2017, she performed at two charity benefit events. First, she appeared at WE Day Illinois at Allstate Arena to celebrate young people's commitment to taking action on social issues. Then she sang "Light the Sky" at the annual benefit gala "One Night for One Drop", organized by Cirque du Soleil at the New York-New York Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

VanderWaal is working on a full-length album that she says will be "more produced ... really the same sound ... [but] less acoustic" than her debut EP.

Accolades

Billboard magazine named VanderWaal to its 2016 21 Under 21 list of "music's hottest young stars". She was a finalist in the Best Female Artist category at the International Acoustic Music Awards in 2017, the youngest finalist in the awards' history. VanderWaal has been nominated for the 2017 Radio Disney Music Award for Best New Artist.

Personal life

VanderWaal resides in Suffern, New York, with her mother, father, and older sister; she also has an older brother. Her father is a vice president of marketing at LG Electronics.

Discography

Studio albums

Singles