Sharpe savours silver (and purple) Peninsula residents have another shot to see the Happy Girl in action during Hearts of the Community awards Tuesday

Purple shoes are a reminder of a happy time for Eryn Sharpe.

Sharpe, 15, wore her the purple Converse shoes in her performance of Happy Girl one of two songs that helped the Stelly’s secondary student score silver in Victoria Idol.

During the finale of Victoria Idol Sharpe performed a pair of songs made famous by Martina McBride. Sharpe was one of a handful of Peninsula singers who made the cut for the final showdown that saw them perform for about 850 fans at the Alix Goolden Hall.

Victoria Idol is a fund-raising effort for Prostitute Empowerment Education and Resource Society, or PEERS. It raised about $20,000 for night time street-prostitute outreach programs.

Zamboni driver Lloyd Serson of Duncan won first prize, recording a three-song demo at Audio Garage on Discovery Street. 2005 Idol champion Alexandria Maillot opened the show with an original song she recorded in 2006 as her first prize.

Just turned 15, Sharpe is already an accomplished singer.

“She was singing before she was talking,” said mom Corinne.

In Grade 3 she joined the class choir with a friend. She fell in love with the music world and started private voice lessons soon after.

Idol was a departure for Sharpe, who has trained classically for six years with Anne-Marie Brimacombe. Each year she enters the Greater Victoria Performing Arts Festival and among other festival awards, attended the provincial classical competition last year.

Sharpe starred as Dorothy in the Four Seasons Musical Theatre production of The Wizard of Oz and is currently working on the fund-raiser with Kaleidoscope Theatre (McPherson Playhouse Feb. 23 and 24).

Pop was a new venue for her but under the tutelage of voice coach Althea McAdam, she learned to “loosen up.”

“I like to just get as many different kinds of experience as I can,” Sharpe explained. “With pop you really have to go all out to entertain the audience.”

Through her selection of songs, Sharpe hit a spectrum of emotions. In the first round, she performed Concrete Angel on home turf in the Charlie White Theatre at Mary Winspear Centre. She found the second round easier, abandoning the sad place and tapping into her sunny side for Happy Girl.

Plus she had the purple shoes.

It seems she always mentions the purple Converse — the high tops fold over to expose a plethora of crayon-coloured flowers — that inspired her whole Happy Girl outfit, and persona.

She sang both songs during the finale, and Sharpe worried she’d blown the Happy Girl performance, but the judges disagreed and named her first runner up in the Victoria Idol competition.

The purple shoes may see some more stage action.

Sharpe will make her return to the Charlie White Theatre at Mary Winspear Centre Feb. 13 at 11 a.m. for the Hearts of the Community Awards ceremony. Perhaps her inspiring purple shoes will also make the return trip. Other Peninsula finalists will also perform at the event.

reporter@peninsulanewsreview.com

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