A TALENTED teenager hosted a major launch event for the release of her new single.

Singer songwriter Maggie Wakeling celebrated the release of her new song Paper Planes on Friday night (September 24)in The Habit in Goodramgate.

Sixteen-year-old Maggie, is a former Archbishop Holgate's CE School pupil who now attends CAPA performing arts college in Wakefield and has been writing and performing since the age of 10.

Her first two singles Underwater and Teenage Life were released at the young age of 12 and 13 and since then she has been working the music scene, busking, gigging and performing at many of York's open mic evenings.

Two years ago, Maggie was spotted on social media by American born, Grammy nominated and multi award-winning producer Roy Hamilton III whose grandfather was American singer, Roy Hamilton. Maggie says she was "beyond excited" when he got in touch and couldn’t believe that he liked her music enough to want to work with her.

Maggie and Roy worked together through the lockdown to record and produce the new song.

She said: "Even though at times it was hard because we had to do everything through Zoom, it was an amazing experience and I learnt so much about writing and producing music. Roy is a lovely person to work with and really gets what you are trying to do with the song. The song is about escapism, those moments when you wish you could just spread your wings and fly high above the world. I wanted it to be driven by the emotions in the song and Roy really understood this.

“I have released a couple of songs before but not on this level. I’m so proud of what I have achieved despite being in lockdown that I really wanted to mark the occasion. I have had so much support from family and friends that I wanted to do something that they could all be a part of as well.”

Paper Planes is available to download on all major streaming sites. Follow Maggie on Instagram @maggiemaemusic or her website maggiewakeling.weebly.com