In the Wings

‘X Factor’ teen to attend Sunday parade, has been recording

Carly Rose Sonenclar and her brother, Russ, record a song in producer Brian McKenna’s Btoven Music studios in Manhattan. Photo by Jordan Rennert/Respect Films

It has been more than a month since Mario Lopez announced that the season 2 winner of “The X Factor” was Tate Stevens, not Mamaroneck’s Carly Rose Sonenclar.

While Stevens won a $5 million recording contract with Syco — the recording company partnership between Sony and “X Factor” judge Simon Cowell — the 13-year-old Sonenclar is also waiting to hear from Syco about a potential record deal.

The instant gratification of the reality TV competition has given way to the waiting game, as Cowell & Co. consider Carly’s contract.

Mamaroneck won’t wait. Mayor Norman Rosenblum and his team organized a parade on Sunday to welcome home their newly minted star. The parade will kick off at 2:30 p.m. from Columbus Park and head down Mamaroneck Avenue (which will be closed for the event) to Prospect Street. A reviewing stand will be set up at Prospect and Mamaroneck, across from Molly Spillane’s. Plans call for Sonenclar to lead the parade and then take her place on the reviewing stand, to watch marching bands, civic groups and sports teams pass by in her honor.

While she will say a few words at the parade, thanking her hometown for supporting her rise on “The X Factor,” fans shouldn’t expect her to sing. Apparently, her “X Factor” ties preclude her from singing in public until the ink is dry on a contract, or until Syco decides officially not to offer a contract to the phenom.

Not that she hasn’t been singing. Last week, she was back in the studio in Manhattan, recording a couple of songs with producer Brian McKenna, the man who produced the “Runaway Baby” arrangement that Sonenclar sang at “The X Factor” Boot Camp. Her brother, Russell, played guitar on at least one of the tracks, which will be available on YouTube in the coming weeks.

“One Bruno Mars … and one surprise,” says Sonenclar’s mother, Terri Edelman, when asked what the tracks are. “People have been clamoring for new material.”

Sonenclar has rejoined classes at Rye Neck Middle School where, this week, she has been in the middle of midterms.

“My teachers have been doing everything they can to get me caught up, but when you miss that much time, you’re never really going to be up to where everybody else is,” she says in a break from studying. “I strongly dislike social studies, but I don’t have to take a midterm in that, so that’s good. We just did the Spanish-American war.”

While she may not be interested in remembering the Maine, Sonenclar won’t soon forget the pressure-packed competition of “X Factor,” with its rehearsals, learning songs with little notice, filming “reality” segments and constantly being asked how she thinks she did.

A month ago, nearly 10 million people tuned in every Wednesday and Thursday to see how Sonenclar would put her spin on the songs selected for her to sing: everything from The Beatles to Celine Dion to LeAnn Rhimes.

They weren’t disappointed. Her fans, dubbed “Carly’s Angels,” propelled her to one of the top 2 spots four weeks running before she faced off with the other front-runner, Stevens, and the girl group Fifth Harmony, in the final on Dec. 20.

“Being back in school is strange, but we’re still working on my career, so it’s not like everything has stopped,” she says. “Hopefully, it’s just starting. That’s the kind of thing that is keeping me able to go to school every day.”

There is another adjustment to being back at Rye Neck.

“Every now and then somebody will ask me for a picture and an autograph, but other than that, people have been really good,” she says, adding that no autograph request has gone unfulfilled.

Being on national TV, and having more than 720,000 Twitter followers, has taught her valuable lessons, she says.

“It prepared me for pretty much anything. There was a lot of pressure throughout the whole thing: learning songs in a day or the day of. It was a lesson to me in how to rise to the occasion.,” she says.

Living in “The X Factor” fishbowl and being handled and scheduled constantly was another learning experience.

“That’s partially why I’m so ready to get into the real world now,” Sonenclar says. “It’s going to be weird, to hopefully do a show one day and perform in front of people and not have to come off stage and do an interview. I’ve gotten so used to running off and having a camera in my face asking me how it went. After every show, there were interviews and press and everything. That might stay the same, but I think I’ll have a little bit more control, I hope.”

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