Grace VanderWaal

Grace was born January 15, 2004 and is an American singer, songwriter and ukuleleist from Suffern, New York. In September 2016, at age 12, she won the eleventh season of the NBC TV competition show America's Got Talent. She soon signed a record deal with Columbia Records and released her first EP, Perfectly Imperfect, in December 2016. VanderWaal also creates videos of her original songs and covers for YouTube, and she continues to perform

her parents, David and Tina VanderWaal, lived in Lenexa at the time. The family later moved to Suffern, New York. Since winning AGT, VanderWaal has been home-schooled and enrolled in online courses.

On the June 7, 2016, broadcast during the eleventh season of NBC's America's Got Talent (AGT), VanderWaal auditioned with her original song, "I Don't Know My Name", and was Howie Mandel's "golden buzzer" act. Simon Cowell called VanderWaal "the next Taylor Swift." Brittany Spanos in Rolling Stone magazine termed the song an "emotional, catchy, quirky tune".

August 23, 2016, titled "Beautiful Thing"

VanderWaal continued to perform only original songs on the show, including her next performance at the quarterfinals on August 23, 2016, titled "Beautiful Thing", a song written for her sister; USA Today characterized VanderWaal's voice as "endearingly croaky".

semifinals "Light the Sky"

finals "Clay"

For the semifinals on August 30, she performed "Light the Sky", and for the September 13 finals, she sang "Clay", a song about dealing with bullies.Lindsay Peoples wrote for New York Magazine: "The songs she wrote and performed on America's Got Talent were not only catchy but emotional and unique to her own sound, a mix of raw and folk".AGT's videos of the four songs have accumulated a total of more than 65 million views. Her audition video was ranked as the No. 5 trending YouTube video of 2016.

"I Don't Know My Name" for the September 14 finale episode

VanderWaal again performed "I Don't Know My Name" for the September 14 finale episode, then introduced a performance by Stevie Nicks, who compared her style with VanderWaal's and said, "[W]e like to be a little different ... and not like anybody else. She's got it. Whatever happens, Grace is going to the top." At the end of the broadcast, VanderWaal was announced as the season 11 winner. She is the second female winner and second child act winner in the show's history.