Ten pianists and vocalists performed at the Upper School’s annual winter concert on Friday from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. in Nichols Auditorium.

The concert, titled “Winter Song,” provided upper school Junior Certificate Piano and Vocal students with an opportunity to perform in front of an audience and for upper school composers to perform their original works. Juniors Medha Shah, Soham Khan, Chetana Kalidindi, Mia Giammona, Judy Pan, Connie Miao, Priyanka Chilukuri, Sara Pachauri, Anahita Far and Vedaad Shakib performed.

Director of Bel Canto Jennifer Sandusky, who mentored some of the performers, believes presenting to an audience allows students to develop communication and presentation skills and that participating in upper school music programs is a great way to become more comfortable with the stage.

“There’s lots of things — the presentation skills, creativity and being able to think in the moment because things come up that you weren’t expecting,” Sandusky said. “Just getting up in front of a group, especially peers, is more nerve racking than anything, and you have to practice performing as well before the actual performance.”

Soham Khan, a composer and a pianist, is a member of the upper school’s Jazz Band. After beginning piano lessons at age five, Soham began to experiment with simple melodies and later wrote more formal works; at the concert, he performed “A Nostalgic Rondo,” the final installment to a piano sonata he has been working on for two years.

“[My] family inspired me to pursue performing arts and music. They’re a rather musical bunch,” Soham said. “My mother adores Indian classical music, so I was accustomed to a variety of musical traditions from a very young age.”

Sara Pachauri, a vocalist, is a member of the upper school all-girls singing group, Cantilena, and is considering pursuing music as a profession. Sara explained how her love to be on stage and her mother’s encouragement to audition for music programs inspired her to become a performer.

“Though I’m a musical theatre major in certificate, I wanted to try something new, something that people haven’t really heard before, so I’m doing an art song called ‘O Del Mio Dolce Ardor,’” Sara said. “It’s by [Christoph] Gluck,”

Mia Giammona, a vocalist, believes that her performance helped her learn more about herself as an artist and that the concert provided her with an opportunity to perform as a soloist, as opposed to as a part of a group.

“I think the most beneficial aspect of concerts like these is learning how you conduct yourself during a solo performance; I’ve only really performed in choirs up until now,” Mia said. “Although I was nervous, I was definitely looking forward to showing the effort I’ve put into singing for the past few years and I knew people would enjoy hearing and seeing all of the artists’ progress.”

Singers who are also members of school vocal ensembles will perform at the next vocal concert, titled “United Voices,” on Mar. 17 at the Mexican Heritage Theater in San Jose. Ensembles performing include the Bucknall choir, Dynamics, Vivace, Harmonics, Bel Canto, Camerata, Acoustics, Downbeat and Cantilena.

This piece was originally published in the pages of The Winged Post on January 27, 2016.