Mia Boostrom

To clarify, Mia Boostrom is listed as a dark horse for one simple reason: She’s a repeat audition, and a damn good one at that. The judges have made it readily apparent that they want past season rejects to try again next year by passing the great majority of the acts who do so. Boostrom may have taken inspiration from the season two rejects Bruce Block and Michael Strelo-Smith, or she may have just been pig-headed and refused to take no for an answer. Either way, Boostrom came back, and the judges love her for it.
The difference is that, while Block and Strelo-Smith were never very good to begin with, Boostrom absolutely has talent, so much so that many viewers of season 3 considered her to have been robbed when the judges cut her in Vegas. Therefore, until Simon Cowell’s influence on this season is made clear, Boostrom is this season’s Donald Braswell – the proverbial figurehead of the discontent viewers.
Boostrom’s challenges, however, are many, so it would not be fair to call her a top contender. Chief among her adversaries is BRI, her apparent rival in Vegas who the judges also decided to include in the Top 40. Over BRI, Boostrom has a slight edge; she has the benefits described above, as well as a slightly more diverse range, but while BRI is not necessarily in any position to usurp Boostrom, she could wind up pulling her back down. Being as similar as they are, if the two of them ever have to compete in the same round, the two of them will be splitting each other’s prospective votes and in effect dragging each other down.
This does not seem like a likely occurrence, but it is something Boostrom should keep in mind. Last year, the two most similar performers, Sarah Lenore and Jessica Price, were placed at opposite ends of the Top 40, so AGT will likely place BRI and Boostrom at opposite ends as well, if only so that one performer does not appear to be a rehashing of the other during the same week. Still, viewers will be keeping in mind the other acts and choosing their favorites right from the start, so even though Boostrom will likely not need to compete directly with BRI, she should still remain focused and perform as if she were. - Michael Ross

This week Mia Boostrom returned to school, and the usual back-to-school conversation: What did you do this summer?

While many of the 16-year-old girl’s classmates were watching TV, she was performing on it — again.

For the second consecutive summer, Boostrom, a junior at Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School, rose through the ranks of tens of thousands of contestants nationwide and advanced to the semifinal pool of people on the NBC show America’s Got Talent.

“It’s kind of surreal. Now I’m back to real reality. I was in TV reality. I spent my summer as a celebrity. Now I’m in math class and I’m hoping for my next big break.”

Boostrom wasn’t given a big break. She made one, singing. Perhaps you heard her and saw her two weeks ago when she appeared on the show for the last time this year, and sang “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen.

“You blew me away,” said Sharon Osborne, one of the show’s three judges. “It was perfectly sung, great emotion.”

“You looked beautiful,” said David Hasselhoff, another judge. “And I’m proud to say we’ve been a part of your transformation.”

Everyone remembered Boostrom from last year, when she made it to the show’s top 80 performers before being voted off. And everyone remarked how much she improved.That wasn’t a coincidence. It was work, but also a labor of love.

“This is what I want to do,” Boostrom says.

And she does it with a vengeance. Boostrom’s been taking voice lessons for five years, and been performing at open-mic nights the last three years, with increasing frequency, in Raynham, Fall River, Warren and Providence, wherever there’s an audience and microphone, be it a school night or not.

“I believe in her,” says Dina Boostrom, Mia’s mother. “She should go for her dreams. What else is there in life?”

A year ago, Mia Boostrom’s dreams were dashed when she was sent home.

“It was heartbreaking,” Boostrom says. “But I knew I couldn’t give up.”

Experience told her that. When Boostrom was 9 years old, she began singing in talent shows, and recalls a particular annual competition in Taunton that she never won, but should have.

“Every year I would go out there and every year I would lose to a model who looked better than I did in a gown but who didn’t sing as well.”

Welcome to show biz.

“It gave me a bigger perspective on things. I may not have the look America wants, but I can sing.”

Singing was Boostrom’s solace against the self-doubts of adolescence, when she felt unattractive and overweight.

“I was the first one among my friends to have hips.”

Last year when Boostrom began the audition process for the show and went to New York, along with 5,000 other people, she had the flu.

“I went into the audition with a box of tissues and a trash bag.”

Her father, Kenn Boostrom went with her and marveled at the array of talent gathered in one place.

“We were in line with dog acts, belly dancers and transvestite singers.”

The judges liked Mia Boostrom’s medley of six songs, which she accompanied on piano and guitar, and invited her back the next week for a televised performance audition before a theater audience of 4,000, where she sang “Let’s Stay Together” by Al Green. Then they invited her to Las Vegas, where she sang Alicia Keyes’ “If I Ain’t Got You,” and then sent her home.

“I don’t think I was ready. I wasn’t confident enough. I was tense.”

Yes, Kenn Boostrom says, his daughter was tense. “I call it crunching.” Mia sang with her body drawn in and her head down, nervous and cautious.

When Mia Boostrom was eliminated from the competition, comments from more than 1,000 people on the show’s web site encouraged her to make a comeback. And so began her Rocky-like return, seeking out and singing open-mic nights at least once or twice a week.

“I got more confident and better stage presence.”

This past year when Boostrom began the audition process again, the show’s crew and staff recognized her.

“I felt I was kind of like a celebrity, but not.”

After singing “Free Falling” by Tom Petty in Boston, and “Georgia on My Mind” by Ray Charles in New York, Mia Boostrom went to Los Angeles and vied to make it to the field of 20. She sang “Hallelujah,” which judges Osborne and Hasselhoff liked. But one judge balked: Piers Morgan, who thought Boostrom was good, but not better than the best in the now-select field of performers.

“I thought you missed some notes, especially when you went high.”

So the America’s Got Talent finals on Sept. 16 will be without Boostrom, who at 16 is now old enough to audition for American Idol, and is thinking about that for next year. But at the moment, her mind is on school, sort of.

“The other kids in school say they want to graduate. Well, I want to graduate, too. But I also want a record deal.” - Providence Journal-Bryan Rourke

RAYNHAM —
Performing live in Hollywood, Mia Boostrom, the 16-year-old singer and musician who studies in Raynham, won glowing praise from two of three judges Tuesday night in the quarterfinals of NBC-TV’s “America’s Got Talent.” (Click this link to view YouTube video.)

Boostrom, from North Dighton, sang “Hallejulah,” a song familiar to many from the “Shrek” movie, first behind a piano as red smoke swirled around her, and then standing and moving to center stage.

“Such a huge song you took on and you delivered,” judge Sharon Osbourne told Boostrom as the live audience roared its agreement. “You’re unique and it’s good to be unique ... You blew me away.”

Judge David Hasselhoff talked about Boostrom’s transformation. A year ago, when she was eliminated during the Las Vegas round of tryouts for the show, Boostrom was “14 going on 15 ... frumpy ... little Mia.” Now, Hasselhoff said, she is “classy. You looked beautiful.”

“It’s great we’re part of your transformation,” Hasselhoff said.

Piers Morgan sounded the only cautionary note. Praising Boostrom as a resilient fighter, he added that she missed some high notes in the song — Osbourne protested that comment — and said Boostrom might not be better than some of the other singers on the show.

Viewers will find out at 9 tonight whether Boostrom will move on to the next round of “America’s Got Talent.” Of the 12 entrants who performed Tuesday, only five will be chosen, based on fan balloting, to advance in the competition.

At Rick’s Music World in Raynham on Tuesday night, 50 fans of Boostrom gathered to watch her perform live on the big screen. The music store on Route 44 is where Boostrom took guitar lessons and performs at open microphone nights most Thursdays.

“I thought she was fabulous,” owner Rick Santos said. “She looked beautiful, she sounded great. I thought she was very professional.”

Santos predicted good things for Boostrom.

“I think she’ll make the Top 5 tonight,” Santos said.

Boostrom, who will begin her junior year next week at Dighton-Rehoboth Regional High School, was featured in the lead-in to Tuesday night’s show, explaining, “Singing is all I ever wanted to do my entire life. This is my chance to make my dream come true.”

Later, just before her performance, viewers saw Boostrom explain that she has often struggled with self-esteem, worrying about not having “a perfect figure.”

She worked on her confidence, Boostrom said, and hoped Tuesday night “to make sure my song is perfect and to control my nerves.”

The show featured some tough competition. Acts included an Indian-American dance team from California, a cancer patient in remission who sang “Time to Say Goodbye,” and a dancing dog named Spy. Boostrom was the fifth of 12 acts.

Asked by host Nick Cannon to respond to Morgan’s mild criticism, Boostrom said, “I think we’re all different. I’m Mia, and I think that’s good enough.” - Vicki-Ann Downing