Picture this:

You are a 17-year-old budding singer and musician, competing in the adult division of Amateur Night at Harlem’s famed Apollo Theatre. Not only are you performing in front of what is commonly considered one of the harshest crowds in the world, but just to make things a bit tougher on you, one of your fellow competitors has brought two bus loads of fans along with him, and they are ruthlessly booing anyone who poses even a remote threat to winning the competition.

What would you do? 

Grace Doty, a 19-year-old artist and lifelong Eastchester resident, found herself in that exact position a few years ago. What did she do? She walked on stage, made her way over to the section of rowdy fans, looked them directly in the eyes, and sang right to them.

“I was so proud of her,” said Caroline Doty, Grace’s mother and manager. “She was the third going, and the first two had gotten booed right off. I couldn’t imagine.”

Believe or not, these are the types of moments Doty now lives for. After attending the Eastchester Public Schools through the 7^th grade and Thornton-Donovan High School in Rochelle, Doty and her mother Caroline decided she would give music her full time attention and dedication. 

The decision was not a night in the making, however. Doty has six years of classic voice training, is self-taught in the guitar, has written over 40 of her own original songs and possesses the type of determination only a mother can truly appreciate.

“I think what makes her successful and what is making her move along is that she works at is,” Caroline Doty said. “At four in the morning I can hear her on the guitar. She’s always writing and always working. I wouldn’t have allowed her not to go to school if she didn’t. School will always be there, this won’t.” 

Doty, who taught herself the guitar two years ago and started writing songs when she was 16, hopes to have her first demo completed by October, which she says will feature between eight and nine of her original songs. Her music – which she characterizes as pop/rock with a country feel – has already earned her quite a few fans over the internet, as she currently has 1,820 people following her Twitter account @GraceSings91, and 1,904 subscribers on YouTube.

Her YouTube page features pages upon pages of comments from viewers and fans, everything from “I think you're going to be a big-star one day” to “hearing you sing truly has made my day.” Doty even woke up one morning to find out that one of her videos had been featured on Paula Abdul’s “Top 19 Favorite Videos.”

“I’m very lucky, because when you put yourself out on the internet, you have no idea what’s going to happen,” Doty said. “I think I’ve only gotten a handful of negative comments, which usually are just odd and make us laugh. It’s been really cool and I’ve been really lucky that people have been receptive to my music.”

Doty has also made quite a name for herself on the local and national talent competition circuit, as she recently competed in a web-show talent search sponsored by Alloy Entertainment and Jive Records, for which she was flown out to Los Angeles for an interview. Out of thousands of entrants competing for a contract with Jive, Doty placed fourth. In a more local singing competition hosted by Mercy College, she again placed in the top 10 out of thousands of competitors.

Doty hopes to compete in more local competitions in the near future, and continues to record songs in the home studio of her uncle and well-known Westchester Jazz artist Jon Doty, with whom she performs alongside every first Wednesday of the month at The Winery at St. George in Mohegan Lake.

And while no one is exactly sure what the future holds for Doty and her singing career, one thing that is certain is that she is doing the only thing she’s ever wanted to, maybe with the only exception being replacing CDs with iTunes sales…

“I remember one time in fifth grade when we were asked what we wanted to do when we grew up,” Doty said. “Everyone was saying they wanted to be a lawyer or doctor. I said I wanted to be the kind of singer that makes CDs.”