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Dream With Me
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The little girl takes center stage in a crisp peach dress and little Mary Jane shoes that seem oversized. Cute, you think. Then she opens her mouth to sing and the most glorious voice emerges - one startlingly far more mature than her age. This has got to be dubbed, you think. But it's the voice of a remarkable child.

Child prodigy Jackie Evancho performs in her first solo concert on PBS in Great Performances: Jackie Evancho: Dream With Me in Concert airing Thursday, August 4 at 7:00 p.m. and again Sunday, August 7 at 5:30 and 7:00 p.m. on KUED Channel 7.

Jackie's musical journey began during a family outing to see the film version of Phantom of the Opera. Her mother, Lisa, bought the DVD and as Jackie sang the music from the film around the house in her shimmering soprano, her parents didn't think it was anything out of the ordinary. "There were no other seven-year-olds to compare it to," said her dad Mike.

Her parents remember the night they realized their daughter had a remarkable gift. "At her first little talent competition, we invited my parents," Mike recalls. "She started to sing, my folks looked at each other like 'What's going on here?' Plus with the crowd reaction, then we knew."

After coming in second place to a 20-year old opera singer, Jackie entered more contests before catching the attention of Grammy-winning producer David Foster. She won a regional competition that allowed her to sing as Foster accompanied her on piano. He was completely captivated by her transcendent voice. And so began her rise to fame.

Jackie debuted as the 10-year-old with the extraordinary soprano voice and perfect pitch. Already familiar to national audiences from her debut appearances on America's Got Talent, the prodigy from Pittsburgh was the youngest star in the Hitman Returned: David Foster and Friends concert. She performed virtuoso interpretations of Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Pie Jesu" and Puccini's "O Mio Babbino Caro."

Sixteen-time Grammy winner David Foster co-hosts and serves as music director of the Dream With Me in Concert PBS special. The concert celebrates the release of Jackie's first full-length CD Dream With Me, produced by Foster.

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