— Who is Brooklyn Ostlund? For starters, she is a 14-year-old from Alexandria who recently got two chairs to turn on
NBC’s The Voice and is now on Team Kelly Clarkson.
Known to her many fans as Brooklyn Marie, she is not just a singer but also a songwriter and musician who says music has been a part of her entire life.
At the age of 3, she started singing on stages and when she was 5 years old, she started taking piano lessons, according to her mom, Kristin Ostlund.
Brooklyn Marie, left, who was 4 years old at the time, performed with her sister, Mady, 2, on the Jingle Bells Telethon in Alexandria.
Contributed photo / Kristin Ostlund
Kristin said she has a vivid memory of driving to daycare when Brooklyn was almost a year and half old.
“She was harmonizing with the radio and I was like, ‘I don’t think this is normal,’ ” said Kristin. “I remember telling Clay (Brooklyn’s dad) that she talked early, started singing early and now she’s already harmonizing and she’s just 17 months old! She’s always had a very unique connection with music.”
In 2016, at age 4, Brooklyn and her sister, Mady, 2, performed on the Jingle Bells Telethon. Since then, Brooklyn has performed as a soloist and also a group with her three younger siblings, Mady, 12, Westin, 10, and Gavin, 8.
Besides playing piano and acoustic guitar, Brooklyn has added the electric guitar, bass guitar, banjo, mandolin, drums and violin to her repertoire.
“Music is literally my whole life,” she said, with her mom agreeing wholeheartedly. Kristin said her daughter’s life basically revolves around prepping for gigs, learning new songs, writing new songs and taking lessons for singing and a variety of instruments.
“She walks around the house holding her guitar. We have to tell her to put it down to come and eat or put it down and go to bed,” said Kristin.
Agreeing with her mom, Brooklyn added that when she takes a shower, she has to bring her phone in the bathroom with her because she does her best brainstorming when mindlessly singing in the shower.
“I’ll hear something and then will sing it over and over in my head and when I get out of the shower, I’ll grab my phone, write it in the notes or I will sing into it. At that moment, you think it sounds good. And then you listen back to it and you’re like, ‘What was that?’ It’s such a roller coaster.”
Around the age of 10, Brooklyn and her family were at Gathered Oaks in Alexandria.
husband wife duo of Ray and Kayla Noble of Alexandria, were performing.
“I asked my mom, ‘Do you think I could ever do that someday?’ ” she said.
By next summer, Brooklyn had learned enough songs for a two-hour set. Learning new songs, however, wasn’t the only thing she needed to do. She also had to build up endurance to play for a full two hours without her fingers and vocal chords becoming sore.
“The entire summer, every single day that we were outside, I was outside playing my guitar and singing to them (her family),” said Brooklyn. “We have videos of me singing and playing in my swimsuit. I had built up the songs and I built up the endurance.”
At the age of 12, Brooklyn played her very first official show, a picnic at The Church of St. Mary’s in Alexandria.
At the age of 12, Brooklyn Marie played her first official solo gig at a picnic at The Church of St. Mary’s. The event was in September of 2024.
Contributed photo / Kristin Ostlund
Kristin said Brooklyn had previously performed, but the picnic was her first solo gig. When Brooklyn was younger, her mom said she sang at two different weddings with another singer from Alexandria,
Brooklyn said she followed Nelson’s career, looked up to her and that Nelson was a huge inspiration to her.
At one point, Brooklyn even told her mom, “I want to be like Josie.”
This past summer was Brooklyn’s third full summer of gigging, her mom said. She plays at wineries, breweries, weddings, corporate and private events, backyards, birthday parties and anywhere else people want her to play.
Her next upcoming local gig is on Friday, Oct. 16, from noon to 4 p.m during the Kidtoberfest at Carlos Creek Winery in Alexandria.
Brooklyn’s music repertoire includes a variety of genres including pop, country, rock, folk, indie pop and more. At her gigs, she plays what the people want to listen to, her mom said, adding that her set lists are quite diverse.
The music she listens to is also eclectic.
“Yeah, my playlists are so varied. I’ll have Taylor Swift, then Fleetwood Mac, then Metallica,” she said. “It’s all just so different. It really depends on how I’m feeling. But when I’m writing, I try to stay in the pop genre.”
Brooklyn Marie of Alexandria at her first guitar lesson at the age of 7.
Contributed photo / Kristin Ostlund
Writing music is something she has always loved, Brooklyn said. At about the age of 10, she wrote her very first song, but said she doesn’t even remember what it was about.
She said she would always make up these little stories when she was little and one day asked herself, “What if I write a song?” So then she did. That is when she fell in love with the art of writing songs.
“I’ve got a lot of ideas, a lot of voice memos and a lot of notes in the Notes app,” she said.
Kirsten said her daughter has two original songs that have been released and that she is working on four more. The hope is to put out a full album sometime next year.
At age 13, Brooklyn Marie played her first gig at Carlos Creek Winery.
Contributed photo / Kristin Ostlund
In addition to releasing her own music, Brooklyn recently also recorded her first music video. The video is for her single, “Tired.”
“I hadn’t even thought about doing one because I thought music videos were something that only famous people do,” she said.
A friend of the family, Alicia Bertram, owner of
Licia Marie Photo + Film and Sota Films,
reached out to the Ostlund family before recently moving to Florida. She told them that if Brooklyn ever wanted to do a music video she could do it. Brooklyn thought it was a cool idea and so they reached out to her.
“We met with her, I told her what I was thinking and we just did it,” said Brooklyn. “It was actually crazy because it turned out so well.”
The Voice: A mom’s perspective
On Wednesday, Sept. 23, Brooklyn’s blind audition aired on NBC’s The Voice, which is a singing competition. The audition is “blind” because the four judges have their chairs turned away from the stage and if they like what they’re hearing, they’ll turn their chairs.
This year’s coaches are Kelly Clarkson, Adam Levine, Riley Green and Queen Latifah. While Brooklyn was on stage singing, “Traitor,” by Olivia Rodrigo, both Latifah and Clarkson turned their chairs. She ended up choosing Clarkson as her coach.
During the performance, Brooklyn’s family – her mom, dad and siblings – were off to the side of the stage.
“We were behind a little partition that had a screen on it,” said Kristen. “The screen is like a TV screen and we could see Brooklyn, but we couldn’t see all the coaches. They say the next artist is entering and these doors opened and then she walked out and I lost it.”
Kristen said the second Brooklyn was on stage, the band started and then Brooklyn started strumming. The family was taking it all in when the host of the show, Carson Daly, came and stood right next to them. He asked the family, “Hey fam, how’s it going?” Kristin forgot that he was going to be there because everything was happening so fast. She said she looked up at him, because he’s super tall, and said hi.
“And then all of sudden he said, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s already got a chair turned. That was the fastest of the day.’ I totally missed it. It was so surreal. It’s only a 90-second performance so by the time we realized what was going on and what’s happening, it’s like it was done.”
After Brooklyn had made her choice and the audition was over, Kristin said Clarkson came over and gave everyone a hug. She told them, “Welcome to the family!” and that she was excited to have Brooklyn on her team, said Kristin.
The Ostlund siblings performed at the 2020 Jingle Bells Telethon.
Contributed photo / Kristin Ostlund
She added that getting a hug from Clarkson was the highlight of the summer for all of Brooklyn’s siblings.
“She is as darling as they portray her to be on TV,” said Kristin describing Clarkson. “That is the most accurate portrayal of her personality – so chatty and so friendly. She’s hilarious and she really knows what she’s doing.”
To stay in the loop, join Brooklyn’s “Inner Circle” at
. More about Brooklyn can be found on her website,
; on her TikTok page,
tiktok.com/discover/brooklyn-marie-music
; on Instagram,
instagram.com/thebrooklynmariemusic
; and on Facebook,
facebook.com/thebrooklynmariemusic
.
Watch for more about Brooklyn in upcoming issues of the Echo Press. We will continue to track her progress. You can watch The Voice on NBC either online at
or on your television.
Brooklyn Marie, at the age of 13, played the mandolin with the Calvary Lutheran Church Worship Team.
Contributed photo / Kristin Ostlund
In March of 2026, Brooklyn Marie, with her band members, Steve Lynn on drums and Grant Invie on pedal steel, played at Copper Trail Brewery in Alexandria.
Contributed photo / Kristin Ostlund
In February 2026, Brooklyn Marie played at Ida Graves Distillery.
Contributed photo / Bryce Galle
In August 2025, Brooklyn Marie played in the worship band at Calvary Lutheran’s Church at the Lake.
Contributed photo / Kristin Ostlund
Brooklyn Marie, with her friend and drummer, Steve Lynn, played music at a Gathered Oaks pizza night event in 2025.
Contributed photo / Kristin Ostlund
Brooklyn Marie, left, performs with one of her idols, Sara Severson from Blonde and the Bohunk, at Copper Trail Brewery in April 2025.
Contributed photo / Kristin Ostlund
In October 2023, Brooklyn Marie, left, and her sister, Mady, sing at Calvary Lutheran Church.
Contributed photo / Kristin Ostlund
Brooklyn Marie had her first professional musician photoshoot at the age of 12.
Contributed photo / Licia Marie Photography
The Ostlund siblings, Westin, 5, Brooklyn, 9, Mady, 7, and Gavin, 3, performed “Oh, what a special night,” at the 2021 Jingle Bells Telethon. T
Echo Press file photo