Melisa Camba Wins 2016 Your Voice Competition

After a very close contest, the winner has been confirmed as 23-year-old Melisa Camba from Manila in the Philippines.

The final entries were by judged by a panel of Broadway and West End performers including; Simon Bowman, Hannah Elless, Jason Forbach, Adam Pascal, Nadim Naaman and Natalie Weiss.

The winner will receive a workshop with Broadway legend Adam Pascal, theatre tickets, an overnight stay in New York or London, and a recording session. The competition and prizes were sponsored by Stacy Swain President of Première Classe Productions.

The competition was launched with the release of 'Standing On My Own' in July by Glee star Jenna Ushkowitz who is currently starring on Broadway in the musical Waitress. All entry fees were donated directly to The Kindred Foundation: for Adoption which was co-founded by Jenna.

This year all contestants had the chance to record one of four songs written by composers Daniel and Laura Curtis, who founded the competition back in 2012 with the aim of finding the next generation of musical theatre performers from across the world. The winning song "When You Smile" was originally recorded and released by two-time Tony nominee Laura Osnes.

When asked about winning the completion Melisa said, '"When You Smile' is truly one of my favorite compositions. It's just one of those songs that gives me genuine happiness every time I perform it. I was really happy that the piece was one of the options for this year's Your Voice Competition so I immediately grabbed the opportunity and submitted an entry. The next thing I know I was reading a message from Dan and Laura that I won. It was just surreal. It is always, always a joy to interpret beautiful music."

Melisa's credits include playing Princess Toragana in Marco Polo: an Untold Love Story at the Shaw Theater, UST Conservatory of Music's Humperdinck's Hänsel and Gretel (Sleep Fairy), KAPI's musical adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet Musical (Lady Capulet), Lyric Opera of the Philippines' Carmen (ensemble) Artist / Teacher at the Philippine Opera Company. She's a graduating student of the University of Santo Tomas.

Daniel Curtis said, "Melisa is a truly deserving winner of the competition and there were some incredible performances submitted this year. We would like to personally say thank you to the competition judges, Jenna Ushkowitz, the competition sponsor Stacy Swain who has arranged all the prizes and every single person who took part and helped support such a fantastic charity. We will personally be keeping in contact with a number of performers who entered this year and hope to be able to support them in their future careers. As for Melisa, we know that she has a massive future ahead of her. We are excited to see what comes next for her. Congratulations Melisa."

Watch the winning video!

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