11-year-old to sing at Citi Field

If you closed your eyes and listened to Merokean Alyssa Pallotta sing, you might believe that you are hearing a seasoned professional who has honed her craft for years. And when you opened your eyes, you would be startled to see an 11-year-old girl standing before you.

Already serving as a cantor at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church in North Merrick, where she sings regularly on Sundays, Pallotta will perform live at Citi Field in August, singing “God Bless America” during a New York Mets game.

It won’t be Pallotta’s first performance in front of a large crowd. She has sung the national anthem at SUNY Old Westbury sporting events, as well as Long Island Ducks games, and this summer she will sing the national anthem at New York Red Bulls and Brooklyn Cyclones games.

That’s quite a list for a girl who will enter sixth grade at the Sacred Heart School in North Merrick this fall. Pallotta lives in East Meadow, having moved there in 2005 from Bellmore with her parents, Shane and Mara, and her sister, Abigail, 8, who also attends the Sacred Heart School.

Pallotta’s sporting event debut came last year, when she performed the national anthem at a Ducks game in Central Islip. She said that the Ducks discovered her after they found a video of her singing on YouTube. “I was really excited for that,” she said. “A lot of my family went. I definitely was nervous because there was a lot of people, but I felt more excited than nervous.”

Pallotta began singing at age 6. “I’d walk around the house, and I’d sing jingles from the commercials and pieces of songs from Disney movies that I had seen,” she said.

Her father, Shane, a Mepham High School graduate, said that he first recognized her talent at a young age when he heard her sing a jingle for a Sleepy’s commercial. Shortly after, he brought her to the Do It Up Performing Arts Studio on Jerusalem Avenue in Merrick, where she began taking singing lessons.

Two years ago, she started performing as a cantor during masses at Sacred Heart Church. Shane said that the parish’s music director, Don Johnson, took her under his wing and has been a big influence in her development.