UCI’s Engineering Student Council hosted a talent show over on Zoom where participants submitted videos of themselves doing something that they were passionate about on Jan. 27. Some of the talents that were shared with the audience included drawing, drum solo performing, guitar playing and authentic throat singing.
There were 11 contestants and three judges in total, plus one submission that was turned in late at the end of the webinar.
The event kicked off with second year computer engineering student Andrea AhSue. She demonstrated her skills with the guitar alongside her brother. Together, they played “Isn’t She Lovely” by Stevie Wonder.
“It was basically the first song that kind of got me into playing more than ‘Hot Cross Buns’ … it’s the only song that I kind of really remember,” AhSue said, when someone in the audience asked what her inspiration was for performing this song.
Following her was Warren Leu, a transfer student from Taiwan majoring in computer science. For his submission, he sung a Japanese song by the name of “Kataomoi” by Aimer. He also played the song’s melody on his guitar.
“I feel like I should add that to my playlist right now … we should have all had our phones out with our flashlights on,” fourth year mechanical engineering student Carolina Perez, one of the judges of the webinar, said after Leu’s performance.
Next was Brian Li, a fourth year chemical engineering student who was unable to make it to the event to view his own submission. He had recorded a video of himself playing on the acoustic guitar of the song “Ehersisyo,” which is a Filipino song showing the importance of exercise.
“Even though Brian [Li]’s not here, beautiful performance nonetheless,” an audience member said at the end of Li’s song.
Second year computer engineering student Lily Johnson was a participant who submitted a short video of her juggling three mini pumpkins. Her performance was cut short after 10 seconds due to her dropping one of the pumpkins.
After her was fourth year bioengineering and biomedical engineering student Albert Lorenzana, who sang and played an acoustic version of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” from The Beatles on his guitar. He specified that it was from George Harrison’s love album.
“You think of pop, you think it’s so different from the sixties. They were all phenomenal musicians … They were all so creative … George Harrison’s songs always stood out to me … it’s untraditional song structure, it’s kind of like a progression … I think they’re great,” Lorenzana said after a member from the audience asked him to express his feelings for The Beatles.
Third year materials science engineering student Karan Sharma, a contestant who was also not present during the event, shared a video of himself doing a vocal performance. Despite his absence, the chatlog was filled with overwhelming support for Sharma’s singing.
“His performance was sick,” an audience member said.
Next up was fourth year materials science engineering student Liwen Yang, an artist who demonstrated her drawing skills by sharing a video of her drawing in multiple art styles. Yang also shared her Instagram account where she posts all of her drawings.
“I will always have a reference … Some art takes me a few hours, but some art takes me days,” Yang said when someone asked about her drawing process.
Third year mechanical engineering student Preston Sterling then showed a self-made music video titled “TEE TIME,” which was a piano cover of a song by the artist Vulfpeck.
“Thanks for noticing,” Sterling said after it was pointed out that he purposely wore UCI merch in his video to promote the School of Engineering.
Next was second year computer engineering student Holger Kibur, who shared a video of him performing a drum solo of a song he has been working on.
“That is a gorgeous set up you have,” a member of the audience said about the drum equipment that Kibur had set up for his performance.
After Kibur was fourth year mechanical engineering student Patrick Kelley, an aspiring musician who performed a cover of Frank Ocean’s “Higgs” from the album titled “Endless.”
“I have three original songs right now on Spotify,” Kelley said when an audience member asked him if he was a songwriter. He said that Ocean was one of his favorite musicians.
Finally, the last submission of the talent show was by third year bioengineering and biomedical engineering student David Pham, who submitted his video too late to be qualified as one of the winners. His video was of him practicing Russian throat singing.
“I found out when I was little if I put my vocal cords a certain way, my voice becomes very deep,” Pham said as he received a question about when he started to partake in Russian throat singing.
Once all of the submissions were viewed, the judges went into their own breakout rooms to decide the two winners of the talent show. In under a few minutes, they came back with their decisions.
“The first winner is … Warren Leu, we really liked your performance and your soft, soothing voice … we believe that you had one of the best performances for the night,” judge and fourth year aerospace engineering student Jan Michael Roxas De San Jose said.
“The second winner is … Patrick Kelley. Your performance was amazing, to say the least. So professional, Frank Ocean would be proud and honestly I am going to be playing that every late night drive I have,” second year bioengineering and biomedical engineering student Gabriel Trejo, another one of the judges, said.
The judges also held a poll for the rest of the audience to choose a third and final winner of the show.
“There looks to be a pretty clear winner … Karan Sharma,” second year bioengineering and biomedical student Jennifer Reyes, one of the hosts of the webinar, said after the audience finished voting. Sharma was not there to receive his money prize during the event, but it was promised he will receive it during another time.
With all of the winners decided, a final photo was taken with all the audience members included to conclude the event. 28 UCI students overall attended the hour-long event.
“Thank you all so much for joining us, we hope you enjoyed some time away from studying … I was so impressed by everyone’s talents,” Reyes and co-host fourth year materials science engineering student Nicole Chen said at the end of the webinar.
Kealani Quijano is a Campus News Intern for the winter 2021 quarter. She can be reached at kaquijan@uci.edu
