Beulah Pinto, the senior winner of GEMS Education’s Best of the Best singing competition, discusses her passion for singing and how she cannot picture doing anything else.

The Grade 11 student at Our Own English High School – Dubai has been singing since she was seven years old, having been inspired by Hannah Montana. Her musician father has also always encouraged her love of music.

When she was younger, she heard about the Best of the Best competition and wanted to develop her voice to the point where she would be eligible to compete and reach the final. Having entered twice before and not won, she knew the 2018 competition would be her last, so she decided to give it her all and decided to sing ‘And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going’ by Jennifer Hudson. Her dedication paid off and she was named the winner.

As soon as the competition ended, she started taking voice lessons once a week as she wants to be a professional singer and hopes to study singing at university. “It’s my passion; I want to see how far I can take it. I cannot see myself with a conventional desk job. In the difficult times and circumstances in my life, music was the one thing that I could hold onto. That’s my escape. I want to do that for the rest of my life,” she says.

However, she is also realistic about the academic demands she faces for the remainder of Grade 11 as well as Grade 12, keeping music a side project until she can dedicate herself to it full time.

If Beulah had to give one piece of advice to students thinking of following a path in music, it’s this: “Do what you love and take risks. There have been so many competitions where I’ve thought other people were so much better than me – they’re better trained and they know music better than I do. But I took the risk, even though it’s not easy. The music industry is a battleground — I know that now having gone to so many places to sing and I know how difficult it is to get to the top. But it’s possible; everything is possible if you try hard enough.”