What Makes Amira's Fans So Devoted?

I am an Amira Willighagen fan since May 2019. 

I first posted about her on this blog June 6, 2019. I joined her Facebook fan group Sept. 3, 2019 and gave a presentation about her at the Circle Center titled "God Sends an Angel - An Hour of Opera" on September 15, 2019. 

What makes Amira's fans like me so devoted? I can give some of the facts about her, but none of it will convey what it means to Amira's fans for I cannot convey the experience of a fan. 

The best way to hear about being an Amira fan is to listen to them speak of their own experience. One place is in the hundreds of thousands of comments on her YouTube videos. The common ingredient is great emotion that does not go away when hearing her sing, and a profound appreciation of her high character. 

Amira is not a media creation. The facts about her are not exaggerations and are not filtered through a public relations department. Currently Amira has no corporate affiliations at all. This is partly because she has always chosen to take her own path. Here then are some bare facts. What we know about Amira we learn from her, her parents and brother, documentaries, and the countless video messages she herself has prepared over the years that wind up chronicling her life. 

Amira is a first class athlete. She is not just a girl who participates in school sports. Had her life not been interrupted by singing, being an olympic athlete would have been hardly more than a formality. This was her second stated goal when she tried out for Holland's Got Talent. Amira was a first place winner in running and the very difficult sport of steeple chase, which as recently as 2020 she was first place in her region of South Africa and headed for the finals. Only Covid lockdowns ended, apparently for good, her athletic career. 

Amira is a world class highly recognized philanthropist. Through her own nonprofit, Gelukskinders, she has raised money for poor children in South Africa, building 15 playgrounds, often from her own singing fees. More recently she has branched into saving animals, and is an ambassador for the preservation of rhinos.

Amira's outreach with underprivileged children is hands on and personal, and indifferent to color or creed. This work that is constant for her seems to be how she gets her joy. 

Amira plays Miss Santa at Christmas

Amira's kindness and care for all God's creatures, and her deep religious faith, does more than impress, it inspires her fans to contribute, and several venture several times annually to help her physically in this work. 

Amira pushes herself in all she does. It is not just her enormous God-given talent that inspires, but her zest for life and love -- the qualities that come through her voice. I have always loved the picture below. It shows the intensity in her face, her determination to win, as she crosses yet another finish line. 

And all this kindness and intensity would be too much to take if it was not all wrapped up in a very happy and funny bow. Amira is famously funny. 

And in all this I have not even addressed what she is famous for, her singing. 

It has long been speculated that Amira may have the finest voice of any living person, male or female, her age. But she is still improving. She turns 17 tomorrow. But a woman's voice does not stop maturing until she is 25. It may shock some, but some very knowledgable of music have predicted that Amira may become the greatest Soprano in the world one day, the Maria Callas of her generation. 

I wish I could play her rendition of "I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls" from The Bohemian Girl or her recent sublime rendition of "La Vergine Degli Angeli" from Verdi's La forza del destino from her most recent concerts, but they are behind a paywall. These are some of the reasons we are still her fans.