Lidyoff piles on success after success
The Tribe Tribune struggled to track junior Noelle Lidyoff’s successes during the 2023–2024 school year. She released several songs with her band. And she won a national YoungArts Award. And she was named an OC Artist of the Year finalist, the only student from FUHS to reach the final round. And she was selected to represent all 12,000 Fullerton Joint Union High School District students at school board meetings next year as the student representative, the first FUHS student to do so in recent memory. And she performed at her church and at community events. And she performed in shows for Dance Production while maintaining top grades in honors classes.
She’s been busy, but the Tribune would like to share her artist story from the very beginning to the now. We’ve included several tracks of her music; you can find more at Della Luz’s linktree.
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Lanette Lidyoff, Noelle’s mom, said that Noelle was 5 when she started singing. “She’d be singing off key while she was cleaning her room,” Lanette said. “She made a tune for whatever she was doing.”
Lidyoff started voice lessons for fun when she was 6 then joined a children’s theater through the Sunny Hills Church of Christ. “It was free and everyone was accepted,” Lanette said. “Noelle attended the summer program for the first few years, then she realized she liked it.”
Noelle started working with vocal coach Jane Harrison when she was 8. Although Noelle no longer takes regular lessons, she and Harrison will collaborate if Noelle needs to prepare for a tricky audition.
“[Harrison] gave me a really good foundation in classical music, which I think is really important for pop singers,” Lidyoff said. “You need to learn to sing in a healthy way for your voice.”
Lidyoff was 8 when she played Little Cosette in the Maverick Theater production of Les Miserable, Noelle’s introduction to performing with adults. Lidyoff was in the La Mirada Theater productions of Number the Stars and The Giver when she was 10 and 11, respectively.
Lidyoff was in the ensemble for the 3-D Theatricals 2018 production of Parade in Redondo Beach. “It’s a really heavy musical. I was young when I did it, but the music in Parade is so good,” Lidyoff said. “As I started doing less Suessical and all the young musicals, and I did more mature musicals, I fell in love with the songwriting and the music aspect.”
Through 3-D Theatricals, Lidyoff was also in Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat and played a young Fiona in Shrek the Musical.
Lanette Lidyoff says she can’t remember when she realized her daughter had a musical gift. “I think you figure that out when other people tell you,” Lanette said. “With some kids they want it, they work hard for it, they love it. And that was true for Noelle at an early age.”
Noelle was playing Molly in a local production of Annie when another theater mom got Lanette Lidyoff in touch with an agent to represent her daughter.
Noelle auditioned for jobs in Los Angeles for about four years. “It’s a lot of work,” Lanette said. “It’s exhausting because once you get an agent you have to drop what you’re doing with no notice and drive to LA, grab the script and memorize it.”
Noelle booked a few small gigs and gained some professional training, but most of her experience came from Irvine’s Voices of Hope Children’s Choir.
Lidyoff is on the worship team at EvFree Fullerton Church. She leads worship when she has enough time and tries to lead the main service at least once a month.
EvFree worship development director Connor Phaff said he saw how talented Noelle was when she showed her range during high school worship auditions.
“I had her lead the worship song ‘What a Beautiful Name’ in a bunch of different keys. Her range is so wide,” Phaff said. “Her voice has the richness and depth of someone much older.”
Noelle said: “I still write worship music. I think if I ever release my own music, I would also release worship because that’s really important to who I am.”
Noelle was a winner of the national YoungArts award this year. Along with a cash prize, YoungArts supports winners throughout their careers. Lidyoff won this year in the voice singer/songwriter division.
Lidyoff met other winners in Los Angeles in February and worked with songwriter winners from Georgia and Utah.
“It was super cool because they split us up into three cohorts, and my cohort was all jazz players,” Lidyoff said. “Jazz is so spontaneous. You just get together with people and play. I wanted to do ‘Feeling Good’ by Michael Buble. They knew it, so I just played my guitar, and they did it, it was so cool.”
She also connected with a spoken word poet and a fashion designer. “We were talking about how it’s so cool to be in an environment like this, because a lot of times in high school people don’t respect art as a career,” Lidyoff said. “When we come together, though, we see the potential that our artistry has to change the world.”
Lidyoff said that she would like to devote this summer to recording music under her own name. “I would love to release an EP in the fall,” she said. “I have a lot of songs that I think are good enough.”
Lidyoff’s goal is to write 100 songs this year. “A hundred songs is average for songwriters in the music industry,” she said. “It’s like two songs a week, which is kind of a lot. But that’s a goal of mine: just writing as much as I can and expanding my creativity.”
Lanette Lidyoff says she wants artistry to be a part of her daughter’s future but, given the competitive nature of the business, her career could go in any direction.
“She would love to be an artist and perform music, but she’s also a gifted songwriter. She’s been gifted with the ability to put lyrics together,” Lanette said. “She has so many songs right now in voice memos and half-produced songs on her computer. She writes every day.”
Her mentor Sarah Grandpré expects Lidyoff to be successful because of her realistic mindset and her authentic love of music. “She’s seen inside the music industry so she understands what her options are. Because of that mindset, she’s going to be so successful,” Grandpré said. “I think she would love to go to a music school to be around her peers. She’s such a people person.”
Lidyoff says she has time to develop. “I’m 17 and most people don’t start working in the industry until they’re in their 20s.”
“The dream would be to be in school, maybe as a music business major, and also write, join writing rooms, sing at open mics, just get heard,” she said. “That’s one vision, but I’m open to other possibilities.”
