2010 NHS Teen Idol Semi Finalist Jenna Huggins!
“An outstanding program filled with amazing workshops, and lasting memories!”
Excerpts from my recent interview with Jenna Huggins...
2010 NHS Teen Idol Semi Finalist, Jenna Huggins is 17 and from Mahwah, NJ.
Jenna’s performing career started off by being Rafiki in the Lion King at age 12, her first big role! She got to open the whole show; this is excellent considering it was her first show with the company!
Besides being Infatuated with The Beatles, “I’m a huge rock n’ roll/classic rock fan, but I love acoustic, folk, country, Broadway, indie, reggae. I honestly love it all! To me, music is the universal language that can bring this world together. My favorite artists range from Jack Johnson, Bob Marley, The White Stripes, Rascal Flats, to Stone Temple Pilots, Weezer, Remedy Drive, NeedToBreathe, and of course the Beatles!”
Currently, she is going to be a senior at Barnstable Academy, she is a lifeguard, and very involved with her youth group and church. Jenna is one of the lead vocals in the church band, and sings at “club” for her youth group. On top off all this she is about to go on a 13-city tour with the Rock N’ Roll Chorus, starting July 17th! They will be performing at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Disney World, Broadway on the Beach, Charleston Music Hall, a few Hard Rock Cafés, have various live radio station appearances lined up and much more!
Jenna’s favorite part of NHS Teen Idol, “The workshops really helped me realize all of the different types of jobs in the music industry there are, I took so many notes! I learned so much and made so many new friends! Singing outside during the auditions with everyone was really fun!” and, “Being able to learn so much about the music industry, from branding yourself to all the different jobs and possibilities there are. "
In her spare time, she loves just being outside whenever she can, whether it’s walking the Reservation in town with friends or her dog, listening to her IPod, or just reading a good book by the pool. She also plays a little bit of piano (still learning).
I had to save this story for last:
This is a funny story she told me, “Apparently when I was younger I had a huge imagination, so instead of just an imaginary friend, I had a whole imaginary family! I made up all these stories of “my family” and sometimes my babysitters would actually think it was true! My real family thought it was pretty hilarious.” Despite the intrusion of the imaginary family, Jenna’s biggest influence is her “real family” and they are also her biggest fans!
My God! Jenna now has a lot of Families, let’s see, we have the imaginary one, then her “Real Family”, The Rock-n-Roll Chorus Family and now our NHS Teen Idol Family!
LOL, Please tell us what happened to the babysitter!
Update: (Jenna told me the babysitter left and never came back. I told Jenna to stop making up stories...)!
by: Alicia Colletti, Associate Producer, NHS Teen Idol Event
July 2010
Here's what Jenna has to say about her Summer Tour with The Rock-n-Roll Chorus...
“There were so many amazing stops on the tour! We had a guest appearance on the Daily Buzz, followed by our performance at Full Sail University's Full Sail Live stage, which was professionally filmed and is being made into a DVD! The show was amazing, and was a great turn out! Probably the highlight stops were singing at The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, The Charleston Music Hall in South Carolina, and singing at Downtown Disney in Orlando Florida!
Now we're finishing up the recording of our holiday album, we've been working so hard every weekend in the studio and it should be out by the end of November!”
-Jenna
November 2010
Jenna with The Rock-n-Roll Chorus !
Hey Alicia! 
I was looking at my interview from last year, and since then I turned 18 and graduated from Barnstable Academy.
Since last year, I've gone on two east coast tours with the RockNRoll Chorus (Summer 2010 and 2011) and recorded a holiday cd "Everybody's Christmas" which is available for purchase on our website! We just got back from our tour leg, some highlights were stopping in Cleveland OH to play at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as well as Crocker Park; ChicagoIL to play at Navy Pier; Nashville TN to play for the Barbershop Harmony Society and the Whiskey Bent Saloon; OrlandoFL to appear on The Daily Buzz morning show and to play at the Full Sail Live stage at Full Sail University as well as Downtown Disney; Charleston SC to play at the Riverdogs Stadium, appear on Low Country Live morning show, play a show for the Charleston City Summer Camp and had a show at the Mad River Bar and Grill; Wilmington NC to play for the Wilmington Sharks at the Legion Stadium; and Baltimore MD to play at the Hard Rock Cafe. We still have a lot of local shows left in our summer tour, so check out our website for dates! (www.rocknrollchorus.com) Also take a look at all our tour photos on the website! We had an amazing time and can't wait for our local shows coming up!
We've been documenting our summer beginning with our vocal boot camp to get ready for tour, and all of our stops on tour in a series of webisodes, so check out our youtube channel to get a behind the scenes look at all the action! (www.youtube.com/rocknrollchorus)
We were also very busy during the winter, singing back up for Judy Collins, opening up for Bruce Springsteen, singing at Bryant Park and singing under the Rockefeller Tree in NYC. We had many other appearances and shows to promote "Everybody's Christmas", our holiday cd.
Aside from the RockNRoll Chorus, I stared in my school's musical Grease as Sandy, and performed a solo at the Bergen County Teen Arts Festival. Most of the time that I wasn't singing with the RockNRoll Chorus, I was busy with being senior class president at school, and working on college applications/auditions. I was accepted to all the programs I auditioned for, and I've chosen to go to Radford University in Virginia to major in music therapy this fall!
