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Top Billing Features Soprano Amira Willighagen
This week we catch up with soprano sensation Amira Willighagen.
In the short time since she won Holland’s Got Talent, half a decade ago, Amira Willighagen has performed around the globe, is on track to release her third full album and has relocated from The Netherlands to our very own Potchefstroom.
It is here that the fourteen-year-old soprano prodigy has found acceptance and humility and discovered her passion for field hockey.
Amira loves the local weather here, SA cuisine and her principal Terry Nicholenas who allows her to truly be just one of the girls.
For Amira, regular high-school life in Potch includes professional voice training with her coach Suzette Wilkins.
Four years back at a classical concert in Somerset West, Amira performed at her first international event. Of the performance fee she earned, she donated half of the proceeds to build a playground for the children of the Ikageng township in Potchefstroom.
No one had asked Amira to perform such a selfless act, instead of after a visit to the town when she was but seven years old she noticed the children in need. In the time since Amira’s charity Gelukskinders has built an additional four playgrounds in the town.
These playgrounds are the result of a young woman who oozes initiative. It was at a picnic with her mother Frieda Brand and her manager Mike fuller that we learned that Amira taught herself how to sing opera from watching YouTube tutorials just so that she could join her brother Vincent who is an avid violinist.
Her latest accolade, the release of her third album is an achievement that we got to celebrate with this young soprano. The album “With All My Heart” sees her first transition from opera to that of popular songs with Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocceli and was recorded right here in South Africa.
