Brandy Young was the $10,000 winner at the Painted Hand Casino's 2011 Talent Show on Saturday night.
A month of weekend performances narrowed the original 17 contestants down to a final four on the night of March 26: Brandy Young, Crystal Genaille, Brett Monka, and the duet of Joanne Klimchuk and Sandie Solonenko.
After a final performance by each contestant and feedback from a panel of judges, the show was put to an audience vote. Young was the big winner, followed by Monka in second, Klimchuk & Solonenko in third, and Genaille in fourth.
"I'm very, very surprised-very happy. I'm still shocked," said Young afterwards.
The twenty-four-year-old originally from Vibank, SK says she has been singing for longer than she can remember.
"My mom said I was singing right from little-little, you know, annoying everyone because I was always constantly singing and humming this and humming that. Ever since then I've just been giving all I can, and going where I can with it and having fun while I do it."
Young, who works with Social Services in Regina, says she hopes to put part of her prize money toward something music-related: perhaps recording a demo or an album.
Jonathan Pasap, general manager of the Painted Hand Casino, said he hopes that the casino will be a venue for Young and the other finalists in the future.
"What we're looking at is possibly booking some of these people for the future to showcase them here."
The competition was renamed "Painted Hand's Talent Show" this year from "Painted Hand Idol" with the goal of opening it up to a wider range of talent. Some non-musical acts made it as far as the second-last night.
"We had magicians, we had some singers, we had different kinds of genres of singers," said Pasap. "It was great-a wonderful surprise each performance."
