Jackie Evancho spent the anniversary of her big break singing along with the girl who lived it. Earlier this week the singer posted an Instagram reel that stacks new footage of herself at a microphone, headphones on, above archival video of her America’s Got Talent debut. The old clip, running along the bottom of the frame, shows a ten year old standing alone at center stage. Filling the space above it is the artist she grew into, singing along with her younger self.
“Today is the 16th anniversary of the beginning of my career,” Evancho wrote in the caption. “How crazy and amazing my life has been in those years… are you watching this season of @agt?” She tagged the clip with #duet and #throwback, and fans filled the comments within hours, several of them saying they had been following her since that first night.
The performance she is singing over aired August 10, 2010, during the fifth season of the NBC competition. Evancho did not reach the stage through a conventional open call. She won the show’s 2010 online audition contest, which handed her a slot in the live rounds, and she used it on “O mio babbino caro” from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi. The reaction to a soprano voice coming out of a ten year old turned her into the story of the season almost immediately.
What followed is the part that still gets replayed. She sang “Time to Say Goodbye” in the semifinals, “Pie Jesu” in the top ten and Gounod’s “Ave Maria” in the final four, then closed the September 15, 2010 finale by singing “Time to Say Goodbye” as a duet with Sarah Brightman. Michael Grimm won the season and Evancho finished as runner-up, a placement that turned out to matter very little. Her “O Holy Night” EP arrived that November, entered the Billboard 200 at number two and made her the year’s top-selling debut artist.
The question she posed to followers is a live one right now. America’s Got Talent returned for its 21st season on June 2, 2026, with Terry Crews hosting and Howie Mandel, Mel B, Sofia Vergara and Simon Cowell at the judges’ table, and episodes streaming on Peacock after they air on NBC. Mandel is the only judge left from the panel that watched Evancho sing in 2010, which gives the throwback an extra bit of symmetry.
The duet format is one Evancho has returned to before, including a video in which she sang a duet with Tony Bennett. Her most recent viral moment came in July, when she posted an a cappella “Amazing Grace” for America’s 250th Fourth of July. Sixteen years on from that first Puccini aria, she is still finding new ways to use the voice that started it all.
Discover more from Trevor Decker News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.