By: Nyah Jackson
Southern’s Student Association (SA) hosted the annual Talent Show in Iles P.E. Center last Saturday at 9 p.m. SA Executive Social Vice President Jordan Collazo, who coordinated the event, opened the evening alongside his assistant, Giann Pinilla.
The curtains opened on a comedic sketch by SA officers, in which Priscille Mikala, SA executive vice president, played a classical piece on the piano, only to be dramatically interrupted by an announcement from Hayden Kobza, editor-in-chief of The Southern Accent, that Mikala would have a senior recital the next day at 7:30 pm.
Starting out the student performances, Anaya Parker, a senior religious studies major, read an original poem about the journey of navigating senior year. Next, Julia Tioseco, a freshman nursing major, sang the emotional melody “As If We Never Said Goodbye,” from the Broadway musical Sunset Boulevard.
For the halftime show, the Apison Pike music collective, led by Jaziel Soto, SA vice president of Finance, Kobza and Otodo, sang “Sunshine/Moonlight.”
Following was Tapo Tsikirai, a junior biology major, who performed “The Prayer.” She sang one part and performed the other part by playing her violin. While watching Tsikirai perform, audience member Qwentin Bland, a sophomore computer science major, said, “This is what a talent show is all about.”
In the final act of the talent show, the Southern Ringtones handbell players from the School of Music played a piece, originally written for handbells, with each of the seven musicians using one hand to play the same piano. After their performance, they explained to the judges that they came up with this idea while practicing their handbell piece and thought that it was something they could keep doing.
Ephram Otodo, a junior public relations major, served as a judge along with Arianne Milosavljevic, a senior nursing major, Naomi Ann Martinez, SA president-elect and Isabella Fernandes-Hidalgo, a sophomore accounting major.
While the four judges deliberated on the performances, members of SA competed against members of Senate in a game of Family Feud. With the Southern Adventist University experience as their topic, SA took the win.
The SA team consisted of President Jeaneva Bautista, Marketing Director Braden Larson, Communications Director Sarina Young, and Parlimentarian Vincent Yang. The Senate team consisted of Derek Renck, junior biophysics major; Tata Tsikirai, senior chemistry major; Joshua Lohr, senior physics major; and Lauren Pritchett, sophomore graphic design major.
In third place was an act by Caleb Ogunjobi, who performed a piano arrangement of five different songs: “Great Is Thy Faithfulness,” “A Whole New World,” “I See the Light,” “The Prayer” and “When You Wish Upon a Star.” According to Ogunjobi, he mentally created this medley and practiced it for a month in preparation for the performance.
“My intention was to just make people happy with what I have and to share my talents with everyone,” Ogunjobi told the Accent in an interview. “I just wanted to do that; it made me feel happy, too.”
The second-place winners were vocalist Itzayana Gonzalez, a sophomore business administration major, and Sofia Pereira, a sophomore graphic design major who performed “The Winner Takes It All” on piano. This performance captured the emotions of the judges, who described it with words such as “capturing” and “phenomenal.”
When asked about how she felt about winning second place, Gonzalez said, “I joined because I wanted to meet more people and just have fun singing and making music, which is my favorite thing to do.”
Jeremie Collier, a sophomore marketing major, won first place and a $500 prize for singing and playing the guitar to an original song. When asked how he felt afterwartd, Collier said, “I’m kind of shocked. I love music. I love doing this stuff. I didn’t know if I was going to win. I didn’t know how this was all going to go. I was super nervous going into it, but yeah, it’s kind of a movie ending.”
The judges chose their winners based on a point system. Ogunjobi finished in third place with 72 points, Gonzalez and Pereira took second place with 76 points, and Collier won first place with 77 points.
