It should be packed on Sunday evening on the Gräfelfingen Bahnhofsplatz – shortly after the popular children’s puppet theater and just before the Christmas market closes its booths for this weekend. That’s when Finlay Hartinger will get on stage and sing two Christmas carols. Alone. Accompanied only by the background music. Won’t he be nervous about that?
“Oh, I’m always a bit excited before performances,” says the 14-year-old – and yet he sounds as calm as an experienced entertainer. No wonder, after all, Gräfelfinger sang in front of a completely different backdrop this year: on the TV show “The Voice Kids”, in front of almost five million people on their home screens and hundreds in the TV studio.
The student from the Würmtal successfully applied for the music talent show for children and was allowed to sing “Walk in Your Shoes” by Nico Santos in front of a large audience at the so-called blind auditions. But even if juror Lena Meyer-Landrut praised Gräfelfinger’s “great voice” after his performance and called him a “very sweet guy” – it wasn’t enough to get into the next round.
“To be honest, I came out a little disappointed,” Finlay says today about his guest appearance on “The Voice Kids”. His excitement was his undoing, he believes. “That was my stumbling block. In fact, I was so nervous that my voice shook when I sang.” Nevertheless, he also took a lot of positive things with him, he emphasizes – above all one realization: “When I first experienced what it was like to be on the big stage during the rehearsal, I knew right away: That’s it! I want to do that later in my career.”
Finlay has been cast in two television series that will air in early 2023
In the case of Finlay, who is in the 8th grade at a Munich high school, two paths could lead to the same goal. Because not only is the teenager a passionate singer, who has since made several appearances – at the Circus Krone as well as at the Gräfelfingen Wine Festival; he also discovered acting this year. After a brief appearance in the ZDF series “Full meschugge?!” he was cast in an online casting for a role in the well-known TV series “Frühling”, after which he took part in filming alongside leading actress Simone Thomalla in the summer. And there’s more: Finlay Hartinger also got a role in the ZDF family series “Die Bergretter” and shot together with Sebastian Ströbel this year. The two series will be broadcast with him at the beginning of next year.
“The shooting was a lot of fun,” says the 14-year-old. That’s why he definitely wants to be involved in a series or a film again in the coming year, although he knows: “The competition is huge. I’ve applied to a lot of things.” In addition to singing and acting, Finlay has a third passion: dancing. He goes to the “Move it Dance Academy” in Gräfelfing for training four times a week; In the summer, the 14-year-old and his team even became world champions in the hip-hop category at the World Dance Contest in Villach, Austria. In contrast to singing and acting, where he dreams of a great career, he says he only does dancing for himself. “It’s my hobby, where I can switch off. When I dance, I don’t have to think about anything. That’s why it’s not something I want to do later for a living.”
The question remains how a 14-year-old can reconcile all the dance training, singing lessons, performances, castings and filming with the academic challenges at high school. “Of course it’s exhausting sometimes,” says Finlay, “because my schedule is pretty full.” Or as his mother Berenike Hartinger puts it: “Actually, Finlay would need three lives to pursue all his interests.” But even if it’s sometimes stressful – one thing is important to him, says the 14-year-old: “I enjoy it all so much. That’s why I’m willing to make certain sacrifices.” And so he is already looking forward to his performance at the Gräfelfingen Christkindlmarkt on Sunday at 6 p.m.