Oct. 10, 2019 -- The first time that Kristen Lyons performed on stage was in a youth production of The Pied Piper where she played a rat whose sole job was to scurry across the stage and steal a pot from a townsperson, who happened to be her sister. 

The Heights High senior has come a long way since then and was recently named the grand prize winner of Shining Star CLE, an annual singing competition sponsored by Montefiore.

Kristen has been singing “since I can remember” and hopes to study musical theater in college next year. But, according to her mother Andrea Lyons, “She joined this competition as a way to give back to the community.  We certainly weren’t expecting to win.”

 

 

The money raised through admission tickets for the final event helps fund memory care units at Montefiore and The Weil’s.

Shining Star CLE accepts audition tapes from high school students across eight counties. There are a series of steps for singers as they advance to The Final Ten. Those contestants participate in a week of seminars, rehearsals, and individual attention from professional musicians. And to bond with one another.

 

Kristen said she and the other contestants “became so close during our week of rehearsal. We were all so supportive of one another that I felt like I had already won.

And win she did, when judges named her the First Place Winner following her performance of  I’m Not Afraid of Anything at the Ohio Theater at Playhouse Square on Sunday, September 22. 

“It was exceptionally, wonderfully exciting,” said her mother of the entire event. “Just thrilling to see her experience.”

 

 

The honor comes with a $10,000 scholarship and an additional $2,500 for Heights High’s Vocal Music Department.

Kristen is a member of Singers, a bass in the Women’s Barbershop, and the student choreographer for Damn Yankees in which she will play Lola. 

After moving to Cleveland Heights from Medina last fall, she said her experience with the VMD has been “an amazing opportunity to collaborate for a collective good.” She is impressed by both the VMD’s blind casting and the sheer number of students and schools who come together to perform in the fall musical.

She has also been impressed by the reaction to her win from the Heights community and Heights alumni, including one who works for Montefiore. “They’ll support everything a Heights person does,” she said of alumni in general. “Once they see you succeed, they see Heights succeed.”

If you’d like to see Kristen on stage, she will perform as Lola in Heights High’s fall musical Damn Yankees on Wednesday, October 30 and Saturday, November 2. There are also shows on Friday, November 1 and Sunday, November 3. Tickets here.