When you hear a 12-year-old say “music has always made sense to me” with such conviction – you know they have found their niche. Young musical talent Demi Markakis is basking in the aftermath of writing and recording her first song It Wouldn’t Be Right.
She wrote the song as part of a school project with the help of her music teacher. The song has had nearly 1500 hits on YouTube already plus made it in the top 30 of an Australia wide songwriting contest, where Demi was up against adult contemporaries in her category.
“It was daunting and difficult,” the budding star tells Neos Kosmos about going up against people more than double her age. But this hasn’t deterred the blossoming artist from entering an industry that is notoriously difficult and filled with challenges, in fact, she’s determined to face them all head on.
Demi’s musical talents started in prep, where she took up the piano. By age seven, the youngster was singing around the house, prompting her parents to put her into singing classes. Since then, she’s taken to vocals like a duck to water, but also added in the challenge of learning the cello and bassoon. And, knowing she’s still so young, she plans on learning more instruments to accentuate her musical career. But even though she enjoys playing instruments and learning about music, it’s singing and songwriting that she loves the most.
The song It Wouldn’t Be Right was written and recorded with the assistance of her music teacher, with the youngster admitting that even though she hasn’t the life experience to write poignant lyrics, she finds inspiration all around.
“[Songwriting] is not as easy as it is for older people because I’m not that experienced, as a lot of songs are about boyfriends and girlfriends and love and I’m not old enough for that,” she explains.
“So I look at the people around me, my family and friends, and they all inspire me.”
Even with this – her first track – she says she was undecided on how to start the song, but once she did, there was no stopping her.
“With this song, I just started off not knowing what to write about,” she says, hence the first line of the song “when it comes to making up my mind I don’t know what to do”. After this, the rest of the song just seemed to write itself.
“Once I got into it, it was pretty easy,” she says.
Demi – who has the full support of her family to pursue a career in music, says some of her favourite musical memories centre around a family tradition of watching Eurovision. It was there that she first saw one of her Greek singing idols, Eleni Paparizou, perform and win Eurovision in 2005 with the hit song My Number One.
Already a seasoned performer, Demi has just returned from Sydney where her hip hop group were awarded with ninth place in a national schools event they performed at.
“I feel happy and right in my element on stage,” says Demi, who has performed in numerous recitals, school concerts and carol nights.
“I love to perform.”
To see Demi Markakis perform her original song It Wouldn’t Be Right visit youtube/PxF8jRNy4O8