TV highlight of the week! Talented students from Newbridge Stage Academy make it through to semi-finals for 'Junior Eurovision'

(Pictured Above: Katie Conlan with The Dynamos and cailíní KLL in RTE studios)

By Kim O'Leary

After multiple audition stages, nine students from Stage Academy Newbridge will be progressing to the semi-finals of the Junior Eurovision where they will be filmed in RTE studios to be aired the week of October 14 on TG4!

The acts had to compose their own song in Irish to perform on the show where they will be judged by experts and hopefully progress to representing Ireland at the Junior Eurovision 2018 in Belarus.

Speaking to KildareNow about the exciting news, the students’ teacher Katie Conlan of Newbridge Stage Academy said: “We are delighted to have not only one but two acts appeared on TV for the show! The first group is ‘The Dynamos”. This group has 6 members- Ali Kaye, Laura Jane Kaye, Faye Quinn, Niamh Whitehead, Katelyn Dennehy and Lucy Murray. They will be performing a song written by the extremely talented 13-year- old Ali Kaye. Ali wrote this song about her Dad and it is very special to this group of young performers and it explains a daughter’s love for her father. Ali Kaye is also a world champion medal winner having travelled to the World Championships in LA with Stage Academy this summer.”

The song was arranged by the girls’ singing teacher Katie Conlan, who worked with the girls on their vocals and choreography. She added: “The girls can’t wait to visit RTE and are really hoping to bump into Ryan Tubridy in the corridors!”

The second group is “cailíní KLL” and the members of this group are Lauren Mcloughlin, Lauren Smullen, and Kela Heeney. Their song was written by Katie Conlan and shows off the strong vocals of these three talented young girls with extremely Powerful voices.

“It has a sort of 60s theme to the song and is very enjoyable to listen to and of course the girls love dressing up in sparkles to suit the style of the song. The 3 girls are most looking forward to visiting the makeup room in RTE to get pampered for the day, and of course making their families proud when they sing on the Stage in front of an amazing Panel of judges,” explained Katie.

The girls will visit RTE studios to record the show with their family and friends and they have been working with their teachers, the junior Eurovision production team, and amazing vocal coaches to prefect their song for their performance.

Tune in to TG4 on the week of October 14 to find out how the girls do in the semi-finals!