Taiwan's answer to Susan Boyle

[Eddie Teach]

Heh, I actually caught a lot of it on Youtube. Diversity was cool, I'm glad they won.

[Lucidor]

He is good, I give him that... I'm assuming he has been training on nailing that song some time - it's interesting to see if he is as quick to learn the rest of the repertoire.

EDIT: The guy has a lovely counter tenor. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSDTDqLI_10&feature=related
He puts colour to the high notes like a woman. Impressive!

[Lucidor]

I listened some to Michael Chance's arias from the Matthew Passion, and Chance is much more nuanced.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHbOOe8n2gY

[DontSayBanana]

He sings very prettily. Kind of weird to hear that voice coming out of a dude though....

Altos and sopranos are rare in male voices, but they do happen.  There was a kid in Texas who got offed from his school choir because he was in first soprano range and couldn't sing tenor without risking blowing out his voice.  Naturally, the school went with the blanket "soprano roles are traditionally female" rather than admit the disservice they were doing the kid.

[Lucidor]

He sings very prettily. Kind of weird to hear that voice coming out of a dude though....

Altos and sopranos are rare in male voices, but they do happen.  There was a kid in Texas who got offed from his school choir because he was in first soprano range and couldn't sing tenor without risking blowing out his voice.  Naturally, the school went with the blanket "soprano roles are traditionally female" rather than admit the disservice they were doing the kid.

Girls soprano voices and male sopranos have different timbres, so I guess the mix would always sound a bit weird, but they could have used him in medieval ensemble work and it would have been splendid.

[crazy canuck]

If someone doesn't watch much tv I don't see why they would know about her

Heck, even someone who does watch lots of tv might miss her if they didn't watch light news programs or pay attention to promos for a few weeks last spring.

She is sufficiently famous for JR to correct Jacob on the quality of her singing ability. 

[Admiral Yi]

If someone had said the ugly broad who sang well on UK Idol I would have known who they were talking about.  I just didn't remember the name.

[DontSayBanana]

Girls soprano voices and male sopranos have different timbres, so I guess the mix would always sound a bit weird, but they could have used him in medieval ensemble work and it would have been splendid.

True, though I'd point out that natural male sopranos don't sound like the castrati did, either.

[grumbler]

If someone had said the ugly broad who sang well on UK Idol I would have known who they were talking about.  I just didn't remember the name.

Whose name?

[merithyn]

He's already been voted off for his Mandarin rendition of something or other.

[Eddie Teach]

That dude does kinda look like Boyle. He has the round face and bushy eyebrows part at least.

[Monoriu]

He's already been voted off for his Mandarin rendition of something or other.

Yeah I heard he sang in Mandarin.  It was only average. 

[Lucidor]

Girls soprano voices and male sopranos have different timbres, so I guess the mix would always sound a bit weird, but they could have used him in medieval ensemble work and it would have been splendid.

True, though I'd point out that natural male sopranos don't sound like the castrati did, either.

I know. It was quite rare with castrati and not a big thing in church choirs, IIRC.