For Viveka Saravanan, the second time was the charm.
Last year, she finished as a semifinalist.
Now the Orange County School of the Arts senior can call herself Artist of the Year, the standout among what one judge deemed “a very polished group.”
“Here’s the thing, they were all so great!” said Tim Nelson, musical theater chair at Huntington Beach Academy for the Performing Arts, who also runs the Rose Center Theater in Westminster.
The long list of honors on Saravanan’s rêsumé includes being named a 2024 YoungArts National Award winner.
Saravanan, trained in both Western classical opera and the classical Carnatic music of her family’s native south India, chose the two pieces she sang for different reasons: The first, “Tornami a Vagheggiar” from Handel’s opera “Alcina,” to challenge herself. The second piece, “There Will Be Stars” from composer John Woods Duke, she selected for its poetry by Sara Teasdale.
A soprano, Saravanan said she hoped to display her versatility.
Asked to describe how she has grown over the past year, Saravanan, 18, replied that she has learned to accept her voice as it is.
“Before, I was trying to mold it into what a singer should sound like.”
And where once she was shy about her culture, Saravanan said she has been inspired by cultural events at OCSA to want to share it with the world.
“Everyone has a heritage,” she said. “This is nothing to be ashamed of.”
Her self-discovery is paying off.
“Heaven knows the opera world needs her,” said Talena Mara, vice president of education at Segerstrom Center for the Arts and one of the judges who remembered Saravanan from last year when she presented both classical and Carnatic pieces.
While she didn’t sing this time from her Carnatic training, which began at the age of 3, Saravanan talked about how the two different styles — Western and Eastern — intersect, because, she said, “Fundamentally, they are really the same.”
Where one might be more to tell a story and the other more devotional, the scales are the same, Saravanan pointed out.
And someday she’d like to be part of creating an opera to show everyone else that intersection of the classical and the Carnatic.
“I really want to explore that,” said Saravanan, who is studying conducting and has conducted OCSA’s middle school vocal choir.
Saravanan would like to double major in vocal performance and music education.
Vocal music finalists
In addition to Artist of the Year, the judges also selected four finalists from the 16 vocalists who showcased classical, musical theater, pop, country, rhythm and blues, and jazz singing.
William Bolin, Division 1: Bolin, 18, expressed a personal mission as an artist. “… to reinvigorate our culture with the rich legacy of past artists and help people of even the most mundane circumstances to understand and experience the intense emotion and humanity of classical music.” Blessed with what one judge called an “exceptional” baritone — and parents who are both accomplished in classical music — the Orange County School of the Arts senior has the solid foundation to pursue his goals.
Catherine Dosier, Division 1: She’s 18 and calls herself “totally a hopeless romantic” who got into musical theater in middle school. Dosier, who attends Huntington Beach Academy for the Performing Arts, said she enjoys performing so much that “it’s kind of relaxing.” She expects to major in theater and wants to minor in neuroscience because she is fascinated by how the brain works and how that connects to emotions: “I would love doing work to emotionally save lives.”
Noelle Lidyoff, Division 1: Lidyoff, 17, is a singer-songwriter, who works in both the indie folk and gospel genres. Her pop music streams on platforms under the band name Della Luz and her worship songs have aired on “Hour of Power.” Her songwriting was born when a youth leader at her church taught her to play guitar. She was 11. She’s a junior at Fullerton Union High with another year of high school to finish. She wants to attend college in Nashville. The judges saw her as a working artist, with this prediction from Talena Mara, vice president of education at Segerstrom Center for the Arts: “She’ll be singing in arenas by next year.”
Bella Wilson, Division 2: Tiny frame, but HUGE voice. Wilson’s father is a singer. Her parents didn’t stay together but “He left me with his voice. He left me with his dimple.” Wilson, 17, started out playing violin when she was young. Too hard. Her sister played cello, so she tried that and was doing well. But a choir performance she saw at Cal State Fullerton, which she plans to attend, inspired her to take a choir class. Then musical theater grabbed her: “I don’t care if I have to sell a limb, I’m going to be on Broadway. I need to.”
