Menifee girl performs with Idol Clay Aiken

By: CRAIG SHULTZ - Staff Writer | Sunday, November 20, 2005 9:05 PM PST ∞

MURRIETA ---- When Clay Aiken took the stage in San Diego earlier this month, 8-year-old Chelsea Doyle of Menifee was standing right behind him.

Chelsea, a third-grader at Calvary Chapel School, was joined by Murrieta's Troy Huffman, 11, and adults Monica Iverson of Temecula and Angela Sanicola of Lake Elsinore as backup singers during Aiken's San Diego Civic Theatre stop of his "Joyful Noise" holiday tour.

Chelsea hopes to someday have a career like Aiken has forged since being the runner-up in the 2003 "American Idol" competition.

Aiken is selecting local back-up performers during the stops on his national tour and Nonie Hilgesen, Chelsea's music teacher at Calvary Chapel and private voice coach, got word of the project and signed up her protege.

Chelsea pushed a sled onstage during a winter scene and was also in a church scene as part of the three-hour performance in the 2,967-seat theater.

The performance is not a typical concert. It was set up like a Broadway show and has a Christmas theme.

" I ... decided to write some scripted dialogue that links these songs together to keep me from looking like a fool up there on stage," Aiken told an entertainment reporter before the show. "It's sort of like a pageant. There's no deep character development, but it tells a traditional Christmas story."

Chelsea said Aiken was friendly, chatting and joking with the backup singers. She took home an autograph on Aiken's "Merry Christmas With Love" holiday CD.

"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, it's him, it's him," Chelsea said of the reaction by the performers when they saw Aiken backstage.

She said she was a bit nervous before the show, but that went away once the curtain rose.

Chelsea, who said she has been singing "since I was born," has a deep voice that belies her blonde hair and blue eyes.

"She's a little girl with soul," Hilgesen said. "She has incredible potential. She has a natural vibrato. She's very teachable musically."

Chelsea has performed in recitals and shows at churches and school and she will have a solo in Calvary Chapel's Christmas production on Dec. 13.

The Cole Canyon Fine Arts Club presented 'A Tribute to Broadway' Wednesday and Thursday. It was a student production with children from the Cole Canyon Fine Arts Club singing and dancing, a performance by principal Karen Michaud, and backdrops painted by parents at the school.

Steve Thornton /Staff photographer

Cole Canyon Elementary School students dance to the music of the 1950s during the school's 'A Tribute to Broadway' Thursday.

Cole Canyon students perform a percussion production called 'Stomp' during 'A Tribute to Broadway.'

First name only. Comments including last names, contact addresses, e-mail addresses or phone numbers will be deleted. Attempts to misrepresent your identity or impersonate any person will not be approved. All comments are screened before they appear online, so please keep them brief. Comments reflect the views of those commenting and not necessarily those of the North County Times or its staff writers. Click here to view additional comment policies.