The number of talented artists and per-formers Orléans has produced over the years never ceases to amaze me. This week’s paper contains stories about two of our community’s most talented offspring.

Michelle Treacy is a singer and songwriter who recently made it to Hollywood Week of American Idol. Although she wasn’t selected for the live shows, making it as far as she did is still quite an accomplishment.

Thousands of people send audition tapes to American Idol every year. This year, the show also conducted thousands of virtual auditions between Aug. 2 and Sept. 8.

Those auditions were whittled down to several hundred people who actually get to perform for the show’s celebrity judges, Lionel Ritchie, Katy Perry and Luke Bryan, in one of five different cities.

Out of those live auditions, 143 people were invited to go to Los Angeles to participate in Hollywood Week where each contestant was chosen at random to do a solo performance, out of which 56 were chosen to advance to the next round.

The final audition – called the Showstopper Round – saw each remaining contestant perform in front of a live audience.

After the Showstopper Round the final 24 contestants were chosen to advance to the live shows.

Unfortunately, Treacy wasn’t able to reach the Showstopper Round, but making it to the group of 143 in Los Angeles was an exper-ience she won’t soon forget.

In 2019, Treacy was one of five contest-ants who made it to the final of CTV’s “The Launch” that resulted in her recording the song “Emotional” which was released nation wide. You can find “Emotional” as well as several other songs by Treacy on Apple Music and Spotify.

Kyle Brownrigg is another incredible talent from Orléans whose career is just taking off. The St. Peter Catholic High School alum recently received a Juno Award for Comedy Album of the Year.

The 34-year-old has been slogging away for the past 10 years, performing at small clubs and Legion Halls across Ontario and as far away as Cape Breton.

His first big break came in 2017, when he moved to Toronto and got signed to the Yuk Yuk’s roster, which led to him opening for people like Mike MacDonald, Tom Green and Gilbert Gottfried.

Unfortunately the pandemic cooled off his heels when clubs and other businesses were not allowed to open for almost two years. When the restrictions were lifted, Brownrigg had to restart his career almost from scratch.

In a testament to his talent, he has managed to bounce all the way back and is on the verge of performing south of the border on the heels of his Juno success. And Brownrigg and Treacy are just the tip of the iceberg.

Fellow Orléans native Eric St-Cyr hasn’t won a Juno Award and he’s never made it on American Idol, but he is an incredible artist whose music is all over social media and the more popular streaming sites such as Spotify, Apple Music and Sound Cloud.

Steffi DiDomenicantonio, better known as Steffi D. from Canadian Idol fame, continues to carve out a career in film and theatre.

In 2022, the 34-year-old Orléans native performed in the national tour of the musical “Come from Away” and in 2023 she had parts in two made for TV movies, “Luckless in Love” and “A Bet with the Matchmaker”, and made appearances in two television series, Accused on Fox and Chucky on the USA Network.

The elder statesman of the bunch is 41- year-old Eric Leclerc who went to Béatrice-Desloges.

Leclerc is a globe-trotting speaker and magician whose popular YouTube videos have garnered over 10 million views world-wide. He is a regular guest on the National Geographic’s show Brain Games, and his original magic has made him a two-time winner of the “Canadian Magic Championship” title.

He’s taken his magic to remote villages in Africa, India, Vietnam and Jamaica under the banner Magic for Humanity and more recently he was voted Faces Magazine’s 2024 Magician of the Year.

So as you can see, Orléans has produced more than it’s fair share of local talent. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. I encourage you to support local performing artists by taking the time to see them live, or following them on social media.

(If you wish to comment on this or any other View Point column please write to Fred Sherwin at fsherwin@orleansstar.ca)