Josephine Biundo has begun living her dream. She is releasing her second CD and her excitement is obvious as she fights back smiles to talk about her recent recording and her upcoming concert

"Ever since I was little, my mom would say, you have to learn to sing and dance before you walk and talk. It was a rule in my household," she laughs.

Ms. Biundo was 12 when she started performing at weddings and Italian festivals. People would call her specifically for certain events.

"I just loved it so much, I mean I was nervous, but the feeling that you get when you are a singer and people are watching you, you forget that you are nervous," Ms. Biundo said.

Now she is 22 years old. She recorded her first CD at 15. From 2004 to 2006, she was Canada's Wonderland's Original Song competition winner and she was the 2004 Westitalia Italian Idol winner. She was also first runner up in the International Song Festival in Naples, Italy.

"Not only was that a great honour to win with an original song, but just to be able to travel to another country that you love. It's also my background and my heritage so I got to learn about where I came from," she said.

Ms. Biundo graduated with honours from Mohawk College's jazz program and last year, she graced the cover of Hamilton magazine.

Her new CD is called Let There Be Love.

"Two of the songs that are on the album are original. They were co-written by a friend of mine, Leucio, my mom and myself. They are in Italian," she explains.

The rest are cover songs.

"They are kind of like all jazz standards, some are recognizable, some are Latin jazz and there's some classical. I like singing so many different styles, it's kind of a mixture of everything I like."

The CD was recorded at Inception Studios in Toronto. Bill King produced and arranged the music.

The upcoming show, Saturday, June 28 at Redeemer College in Ancaster will showcase the new CD, which took a year- and-a-half to create.

"The musicians playing are all the musicians on the album. The really special thing about them is that they were all my teachers at Mohawk while I was there, so it's pretty exciting to have them play with me," Ms. Biundo says.

At the show, she will perform the entire record and there may be some surprises too.

"This is one of the biggest events because of the whole CD coming out and the musicians that I'm playing with," says Ms. Biundo.

As for her day job, Ms. Biundo teaches music at elementary schools and in the evening she gives vocal lessons. For fun, she sings in a rock band called Stella.

"That's what I really want to do. I'm going to keep promoting the CD and I'm going on a little tour out west [next fall] with four other girls, it's called The Young Diva's Concert Series," she says.

The girls will perform at the Toronto Beaches Jazz Festival in July.

"I love to perform. It's just a cool feeling to do something that you love to do and have people coming to watch you."

To purchase Let There Be Love or tickets for the concert, visit www.josephinesings.info. The show is at 8 p.m. Saturday, June 28 at Redeemer College. Tickets are $20 in advance.