A dream come true for 13-year-old Donna

 IT is not every day that a 13-year-old secondary school student gets an opportunity to go into arecording studio and, eight hours later, comes away with a debut CD with seven of her favourite tracks.

This was like a Jim’ll Fix It scenario for young Donna Higgins from Ballinderry, Corofin who lived the dream of recording her own album – it will be launched in the Corralea Court Hotel in Tuam on Saturday night.

Donna, a Mercy Convent first year student in Tuam, had taken part in the Junior West’s Got Talent competition which was run in Geoghegan’s Nightclub in Tuam.

Having impressed the judges round after round, Donna suddenly found herself in the final. But despite putting up a tremendous performance, she did not win the contest.

While she was disappointed she took consolation in the fact that she had reached the final, having been singing for just the past three years.

But looking on was Martin Geoghegan, owner of Geoghegan’s Nightclub and the local Corralea Court Hotel, who was certainly impressed by what he saw.

After the dust settled on the singing contest, he approached Donna to say that he was willing to pay studio recording time for her and she was whisked away to Sun Street Studios – where The Sawdoctors recorded their first album – and she was like a natural.

It is somewhat ironic that Donna sings two songs that were performed by Cher Lloyd in the 2010 version of The X Factor. On that occasion Cher Lloyd was not a winner either, finishing fourth while Donna was second in her contest and is getting a major break at a very young age.

The new album features songs like Stay and Empire State of Mind which were both performed by Cher Lloyd on X Factor. Donna’s strong voice also allows her to perform Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You and Celine Dion’s theme from Titanic, My Heart Will Go On among others.

Donna started singing three years ago with the Corofin Comhaltas group and has performed with the Abbeyknockmoy Set Dancers but her love of the stage really took hold when she performed in the Black Box in Galway two years ago with her father James Higgins backing her on guitar.

“She performed brilliantly on that occasion”, said her proud dad. “After that, she got a new confidence and even when she went to record the CD, it took just eight hours to record the seven song album which wasn’t bad at all”.

James Higgins has been playing with a local band on the pub circuit and he will be backing his talented daughter on Saturday night while the launch of the new album will be performed by Cllr Eamonn Kitt who is the principal of the primary school in Ballinderry where Donna attended before going on to secondary school.