Surrounded by Talented People
I really admire people who are musically and artistically talented. Although I play a musical instrument, I am much better at science than I am at musical endeavours. So when I see people perform great music that they’ve written, I find it very impressive. I made it a goal to go to more of Amherst’s free concerts my senior year. Every time I go to one of the student performances, I am reminded of how many talented people we have here. A few weeks ago, I went to a senior thesis performance called “the 9th Dimension”. It was a science fiction jazz performance, the musicians wore alien costumes and throughout the performance the lead singer told a story of interdimensional alien shenanigans. It reminded me a lot of the novel “The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy” . The performance was funny and creative and thoroughly entertaining, and the costumes and characters were fantastic.
There was another student performance I went to that really impressed me. This was also a few weeks ago, near the middle of the semester. At an annual event held by the school’s Black Student Union, called Harlem Renaissance, there was a student who played the electric violin. He explained that he made a bit of money playing as a street performer over the summer, and played a few of his most popular songs. He was so good that the audience demanded an encore. When he played again, he did something that he’d “never done in front of a live audience” . On stage, he recorded a beat by tapping the violin and then began playing covers of songs and bits of improvisation on top of it. While he was in the middle of his performance, one of the parents in the audience stood up and placed a dollar on stage for him, more and more audience members followed suit, and by the end of the performance he had a pile of bills on the stage at his feet. He walked off the stage to a standing ovation.
As a STEM major, I spend most of my time in the lab and surrounded by research. I like science, but it’s nice to engage with more creative energy too. I like the student performances because they remind me of all the artistic creativity that goes on at Amherst, and because I enjoy knowing that I am surrounded by talented people working to create wonderful art, and I feel lucky that I get to witness it.