A TEENAGE songstress is set to appear in the final of a competition to find the country’s best unsigned acts.

Daisy Jackaman, who lives in Highwoods, Colchester, will be singing at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham next Saturday in the final of the Open Mic UK competition.

The 14-year-old originally entered the contest last summer and made it through regional rounds based in Chelmsford and Camden where she sang a jazzy arrangement of Taylor Swift’s smash hit Blank Space.

She then appeared at the Area Final in Hayes, Middlesex, where she took on a version of Meghan Trainor’s All About That Bass.

Despite a phenomenal reaction from the live audience, Daisy did not receive the judges’ votes but she was voted through in an online poll as a wildcard by the audience ahead of dozens of other candidates.

The Gilberd School pupil said she was excited to be strutting her stuff on the big stage in front of industry experts and was hoping for a full house at the arena when she sings That’s Life from American television series Smash.

She said: “I am really excited and it was brilliant to go through in the public vote.

“I only get nervous just before I go out to sing but when I start it just goes away.

“It is an amazing experience and last time I was singing I listened in the middle and I could hear everyone cheering.

“One of my big influences is Amy Winehouse, my parents are both musical and have taken me to Ronnie Scott’s jazz club a few times which has been great.”

Previous singers who have been spotted in Open Mic UK include Brit-award nominated Birdy, X Factor star Lucy Spraggan and Union J member Jaymi Hensley.

Competition winners get £5,000, time in a recording studiom, singing lessons from industry experts and HD copies of each performance.

Proud mother Victoria Jackaman said: “She has been having lessons for a couple of years now with her singing teacher Tara Wilcox who has become a really good mentor.

“She has probably been singing since the age of eight but all of a sudden she began sounding really, really good.

“She is really talented and when she hears a song she likes she can go over to the keyboard and put the chords together so quickly.”