Surrey performers were among the top three prize winners at the PNE’s Star Showdown talent contest winners in the finals competition Aug. 23.
Adult dance team SiniGang – featuring Angelo Galedo, Adrian Cabanos, Ervinn Tangco, Kevin Locsin and Ronn Micah Reyes – took the third-place spot in final judging, winning $1,000.
First place was claimed by youth performer Emma Pedersen, 19, of Squamish, whose singing of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah scored her the top prize of $5,000 and the opportunity to represent B.C. at the Canadian Youth Talent Competition at the Canadian Association of Fairs and Exhibitions’ annual conference in London, Ontario this November.
Adult singer-guitarist Des Larson, of Courtenay, took the $2,000 prize for second place in the contest.
Surrey was also well-represented among contestants who made it to the finals, including the youth band Mortal Soil (Stefan Grabowski, Michael James and Tek Leang), and, in the Kids Division, singer-keyboardist Benjamin Dunnill, hip hop crew CNC (Katie Adina, Angelica Emnacen-Boyd, Gabriel Galedo, Dominique Mailloux, Vanessa Pankhurst and Joshua Zaporteza) and singer Nhemy-Jjr Cepeda.
Local semi-finalists in the Youth Division included White Rock dancer Angella Slaunwhite and Cloverdale singer Sydney Balston.
Adult singer Dani Fuentes of Surrey was also a semi-finalist in the annual contest.
