Senior Arun Shriram hosted a successful music concert that raised $3,901 for Make-A-Wish Greater Bay Area at the Good Samaritan Methodist Church in Cupertino on Sept. 12. At least 130 people attended the event. He researched the non-profit organization and really appreciated their efforts.

“We were searching for venues for a long time since we were doing everything so late. It was really hard, but the Good Samaritan Church’s mission really aligned with what we were trying to do for our cause,” Arun said. “Another place…had a stage smaller than this one geared for $500, but the Good Samaritan gave it for free, even bigger and even better, so it was perfect.”

The San Francisco World Music Festival inspired Arun’s idea for a fusion concert made of music and instruments from different cultures.

“I really learned a lot about these master musicians from around the world like Tibet, Korea, China, India, and other places, so it was a really useful experience to learn about how different musical systems work,” Arun said. “There was the Chinese erhu or the Azerbaijani kamancha, and there was an Irish harpist…There were…so many different variations of instruments and I was like, ‘Wow, music is really cool.’”

In order to prepare, Arun started to ask his friends in mid-May to join. Out of the hundred people he asked, only around ten agreed. Once he gathered all the members, rehearsals formally began in July, though the performers convened once in June. Meetings were hard to arrange due to everyone’s busy schedules, and the majority of the practices occurred in the last week of July and throughout August and September. Arun chose the music for the fusion song where classical western and Indian instruments played together and helped make the flyer and tickets.

When school started, his mother assumed much of the workload. Parent volunteers at her singing school, Nadalaya School of Music, also chimed in.

“They helped out with the brochure, publicity and helping out with the promo video, just basically everything that would have to be done near to the concert time like mic setup and audio systems and things like that,” Arun said. “They were a really big help for me during this entire process.”

His extensive background in music helped him select the final fusion song.

“Indian music has been in my family for the last six generations. Everybody in my entire family has played it,” Arun said. “My dad, Shriram Brahmanandam, plays the Indian drums, and my mom, Shanthi Shriram, does Indian classical vocal. They both taught me at a young age, and I decided to continue with percussion.”

This past summer, he also gained experience as a percussionist in the Stanford Symphony Orchestra. Combined with his twelve years of Indian percussion, Arun learned about the different kinds of music in the world through these events.

Arun Shriram (12) originally wanted to raise money for the Science for Youth club to make it into a non-profit organization. However, since he arranged that event rather late, his idea became infeasible. He instead decided to organize a fundraiser for Make-A-Wish.

The charity organization grants the requests of children with life-threatening medical conditions. The children have five wishes that the club addresses: I wish to go, I wish to meet, I wish to be, I wish to have, and I wish to give.

“I was reading a story; one kid said he wanted to go on planes, trains, and automobiles, and I was like, ‘What, I do that every other day.’ But I looked at him, and the pictures of him, and how much fun he was having,” Arun said. “It was really cute and nice to see what we take for granted being cherished by somebody else.”

The event consisted of an evening with two hours of music. A string quartet, mainly composed of members from the Harker string quartet, played. A few members from the jazz band performed as well. Two seniors, Natalie Simonian and Aashika Balaji, produced a piano and vocal duet. Arun and Rohan Desikan (12) played a drum duet, and Arun later put on sunglasses and joined the jazz band. Many of his mother’s students also sang Indian music, and at the end of the concert, everyone played together in one song.

Arun’s accumulated efforts paid off in the amount of donations he received.

“I really didn’t expect so many people to donate to the fundraiser and I’m really happy,” Arun said.“I’m proud of what happened and I was really serious about doing this in the future.”

Next, Arun hopes to arrange a concert that is able to traverse the world and is as large as the World Music Festival.