Goven gets ‘Voice’ tips from Kat Perkins
By Suzanne Werre
Editor
Turtle Lake 13-year-old Grace Goven wowed the judges enough with her powerful rendition of “Halleluiah” to take first place at this year’s inaugural Turtle Lake’s Got Talent competition a few weeks ago. What the judges saw was a young girl belting out an emotional performance of a popular song – a song they had undoubtedly heard many times before.
What they probably didn’t know was that Grace had recently had the opportunity to hone her skills by taking part in a workshop with The Voice season 6 semifinalist Kat Perkins.
Perkins, originally from Scranton, is a staple at Medora’s Burning Hills Amphitheatre and is a former Burning Hills Singer, who rose to fame after advancing to the semifinals on NBC’s talent show/contest, The Voice.
Touring the upper Midwest this summer, it’s only appropriate that the rocker would put on a workshop for vocalists at Medora, giving her young students the opportunity to sing for the crowd at the famed amphitheater.
When Goven saw Perkins was going to be putting on a workshop at Medora this summer, she knew she just had to go, so she sent in her audition video, and was accepted to the camp, where she would work on her voice control and technique, and also learn how to dance and act while singing.
“It was really awesome,” said Grace. “She also gave us acting classes, and she helped us put together an album, and she taught us that there is so much that goes into songs and songwriting and things – more than just writing down words and rhythms.
