Students prepare for Saratoga Idol

Even though last year was senior Katie Cummins’ second time competing in Saratoga Idol, she was still not used to singing by herself in front of a large crowd. As she stepped onto the stage and looked out at all the faces staring at her, Cummins became extremely nervous.

“Then I saw a group of my friends silently cheering me on. [I also saw] that my sister had a poster,” Cummins said. “So I told myself to just imagine myself practicing back in my bathroom [since it] has really good acoustics in there.”

Cummins performed beautifully and placed third last year by singing “Jump then Fall” by Taylor Swift and “Breathing Underwater” by Marie Digby. This year, she hopes to sing “Breakeven” by the Script.
“I’m really sad that this is my senior year and my last time competing,” Cummins said. “It’s been a really fun experience.”

Nine other brave students will also be singing their hearts out in the McAfee Center to impress the audience and the judges in hopes of being the next Saratoga Idol on March 21.

Based on the singing competition TV show, “American Idol,” the competitors will take turns singing one song each in front of a panel of judges, who are science teacher Lisa Cochrum, English teacher Erick Rector and history teacher Kim Anzalone.

The audience will vote for the top three to sing again, and the winner will be chosen by the end of the night. The show will also have two groups of singers as the intermission acts.

Run by the junior class officers, the night of entertainment is also a fundraiser for the junior class to help pay for its prom.

“We won’t be making that much money, so [it’s] more of just putting music out there for the school and we get a little money to help pay for prom,” junior class treasurer Amin Mirzadegan said.

The junior class officers held auditions the week of Feb 27. Almost 30 people showed up to sing their 90-second audition. A supervisor was present and the judges recorded each audition so the decisions remained unbiased.

With all the great talent that auditioned, narrowing down the competitors and choosing the 10 students who would sing at the show was difficult. The juniors tried to give new students a chance rather than students that already had competed before.

“Everyone who auditioned was really talented, so it was really hard to narrow it down,” said junior class secretary Evelyn Lee. “When we had to make a decision, I was kind of sad because there were so many great people who tried out that we couldn’t take.”

The junior class officers expect Saratoga Idol to be a great show for everyone.

“I think this [will be] a lot of fun. The whole school comes out together to listen to [students from our school] sing,” said Lee. “Overall, it’s going to be a good experience. I’m really excited.”

The competitors other than Cummins are sophomores Manini Desai, Nikhil Goel and Nina Jayashankar, junior Erik Martin and seniors Penny Burgess, Shayda Khorasani, Tiffany Tu, Chelsea Venuti and Jimmy Zheng.