Grace VanderWaal

Grace Avery VanderWaal (born January 15, 2004) is an American singer, songwriter and actress.

She is known for her distinctive vocals and has often accompanied herself on the ukulele.

VanderWaal began her musical career by posting videos of her original songs and covers on YouTube and performing at open mic nights near her home in Suffern, New York.

When he became a vice president of marketing at LG Electronics in 2007, the family moved to Suffern, New York.

VanderWaal later moved to South Carolina.

She has an older brother and sister.

She asked for one for her 11th birthday but her mother refused, thinking she would never learn to play it.

Then she bought one herself, using money she received for her 11th birthday, and watched more videos to teach herself how to play.

She also played the saxophone in her school's marching band.

In 2015, VanderWaal began to record song covers and original songs, accompanying herself on ukulele, and to post them on her YouTube channel.

She includes among her musical influences such artists as Jason Mraz, Twenty One Pilots and Katy Perry.

She also began to perform during open mic events at small venues near her home and to study music theory.

In September 2016, at age 12, she won the eleventh season of the NBC competition show America's Got Talent (AGT), performing her original songs.

In December 2016, with Columbia Records and Syco Music, she released her debut EP Perfectly Imperfect, which became the best selling EP that year.

She has been named to Billboard magazine's 21 Under 21 list of fast-rising young music stars five times (2016–2019 and 2021) and is the youngest person ever included in the Forbes 30 Under 30 music list.

VanderWaal was born near Kansas City, Kansas, to Tina and David VanderWaal, who lived in Lenexa at the time.

Her father is of Dutch descent.

After winning America's Got Talent in 2016, VanderWaal was home-schooled and enrolled in online courses for 7th grade but later attended public school part of the time.

She graduated from the Laurel Springs School in 2022.

VanderWaal was singing and making up songs by the age of three.

As a preteen, she found songwriting inspiration by watching movies and trying to imagine what a character was feeling, and "what it would be like if I were them, and wrote a song."

She decided to learn the ukulele after watching a Brazilian au pair play and seeing a Twenty One Pilots video on YouTube.

In July 2016, after her audition on AGT, she performed at the Lafayette Theatre in Suffern and then at the Ramapo Summer Concert Series at Palisades Credit Union Park.

On June 7, 2016, VanderWaal auditioned for the eleventh season of NBC's talent competition show AGT, singing her original song about identity, "I Don't Know My Name".

She was selected by one of the show's judges, Howie Mandel, as his "golden buzzer" act to skip the next round and perform in the live quarterfinal round.

Simon Cowell called VanderWaal "the next Taylor Swift."

Brittany Spanos in Rolling Stone magazine termed the song an "emotional, catchy, quirky tune".

VanderWaal continued to perform her original songs on the show; for her next performance at the quarterfinals on August 23, 2016, she sang "Beautiful Thing", a song that she wrote for her sister.

For the semifinals on August 30, she performed "Light the Sky", and for the September 13 finals, she sang "Clay", a song about dealing with bullies.

AGT's video of VanderWaal's audition has drawn more than 100 million views, and was ranked the No. 5 trending YouTube video of 2016.

VanderWaal again performed "I Don't Know My Name" at the September 14 finale results episode, then introduced a performance by Stevie Nicks, who compared her own style with VanderWaal's. At the end of the broadcast, VanderWaal was announced as the season 11 winner.

She was the second female winner and the second child winner in the show's history.

VanderWaal planned to use part of her AGT winnings to make a donation to charity and to buy two tree houses, built by the team from Treehouse Masters, for herself and her sister.

Her first full-length studio album, Just the Beginning (2017), debuted at number 22 on the U.S Billboard 200.

She has performed at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Madison Square Garden, the opening and closing of the 2017 Special Olympics World Winter Games in Austria, various benefit concerts, the Austin City Limits Music Festival and on various television talk shows.

VanderWaal conducted her first concert tour in 2017 in support of Just the Beginning.

VanderWaal has received 2 Radio Disney Music Awards (including a Best New Artist award), a Teen Choice Award, the 2017 Billboard Women in Music Rising Star Award, and the 2018 MTV Europe Music Award for Best Push Act.

She next toured in mid-2018 with Imagine Dragons in their Evolve World Tour, and in 2019, after opening in a tour for Florence and the Machine, she conducted her own Ur So Beautiful tour.

She released a second EP, Letters Vol. 1, in 2019.

She made her acting debut in 2020, starring as Susan "Stargirl" Caraway in the Disney+ musical drama film Stargirl, followed by its 2022 sequel Hollywood Stargirl.