Cici Jansen

CiCi has always been quite the performer. She began taking dance lessons at age 4. She loved it but especially loved her recital costumes!!!! But she told her mom, “I just want to sing!!!!!” As she got older, she realized that dancing, yet fun, was not as important to her as singing. So, at the age of 7, she began taking lessons and performing in musicals such as “Annie” where she played an orphan. She decided she wanted one-on-one voice lessons. She was slightly late to the very first recital where she was supposed to sing the Vanessa Hudgens song, “When There Was Me and You.” She and her parents came running into vocal arts center and it was her turn to get up and sing immediately. She turned to her mom and said, in tears, “I don’t want to do this mom…” She was scared to death but her mom continued to nudge her along with her hand on her back and got her onto the stage. The look on CiCi’s face was priceless….she was mortified. The backing track music began to play as her parents waited nervously, and she began to sing…..and she sang it very well, on key, very softly, and confidently. Her mom had tears rolling down her cheeks watching. Her little girl did it! She had gotten through her very first performance on stage…..and that was the beginning of CiCi’s love of singing and performing.

Having grown up listening to country music, since her mom kept the radio tuned to a local country channel, CiCi decided that she loved the stories that country music told and the emotions it could bring. She was very influenced by the voices of Faith Hill, Carrie Underwood, Sugarland, and Trisha Yearwood. CiCi puts her own spin on the songs of these artists when she sings them. She wants to sound like no one but CiCi, herself. She, her mom, and her voice teacher have taken some of the sketchy songs that CiCi has written and turned them into recordable pieces. Enter….Tim Cashion, an old friend of her mother’s and the key board player for Grand Funk Railroad. He heard her sing and immediately offered to help with her dream to record songs and write. Tim, her local producer, has been working behind the scenes by writing songs just for her. Her mom has even co-written a song with Tim for her to sing! The three of them meet weekly to record, do music videos, plan trips to Nashville, and to just have fun making music. Her voice teacher, Shannon Roschke, has spent and is still spending, numerous hours, some on her own time, to teach CiCi the most intricate details of singing and performing.

With the help of her mother, her biggest influence and fan, CiCi’s dreams are beginning to play out in her young life. Her mom stays up until the wee hours of the morning looking for competitions and venues for her to perform. She is the administrator for all of CiCi’s websites to help lessen the work for her daughter. A studio has been erected in the front room of the Jansen household along with speakers, monitors, a mixer, a state-of-the art karaoke machine that she won in a competition, every kind of mic that a singer would want, and the walls are even adorned with sound absorbing material that is framed in stained wood. Nightly practices have become the norm with her mom, who has a background in music, telling her when she was flat or sharp and critiquing her “stage performances” to make her better….and the plan is working.

CiCi began entering competitions and winning prizes such as $1,000 gift card for the shops at Birkdale Village in Huntersville, NC. She was also awarded a demo cd by Jive Records who were judges at this competition. She won first place during Denver Days for her age category. She was in the finals of two Colgate Country Showdown competitions sponsored by specific radio stations and on the third try, she won, beating out 23 other adults. She moves on to the State finals and will be working to win that title. CiCi also found a networking support system through Ladies of Country Music based out of Jackson, MS. Her original song moved to 2nd place on the LOCM charts and she remained in the top 10 for weeks. She and her mom went to the LOCM magazine kick off where she did two sets of music both of which were filmed for TV by Nashville Spotlight, a TV show for up and coming female country artists. The producer of the show saw her sing and in September 2009, she will be doing his show in Nashville. CiCi has shared her voice with the community by singing solos on a float in the North Mecklenburg Christmas parade, singing at Our Town’s Habitat for Humanity’s 20th anniversary, sing the “Star Spangle Banner” at a Relay for Life then entertaining at the Survivor’s Dinner. CiCi also sang for the North Mecklenburg Chamber of Commerce at an “after hours” function.

As you listen to CiCi sing, if you were to close your eyes, you would think you were listening to an experienced, seasoned professional singer in her 20’s or 30’s. But open your eyes back up and there stands a thin, attractive,