SUMMER 2015
Arts
Vocal Victory: Freshman Recognized
PAGE 12
Natasha Heim
Staff Writer
OCSA is upheld
for its array of young
artists, coming from
far and wide to contribute to a collective
creative high school
culture.
Sophia Dion, a
freshman in Contemporary Music, came
to this school from
so far away that she
had to audition via
Skype. Sitting on her
futon in Utah last
year, Sophia showcased her talent as a
vocalist and guitarist,
belting Adele’s hit,
“Rolling In the Deep.”
Suzy Haner, cocoordinator of the
commercial music
program, said, “As
soon as she started, I
covered the camera
and declared that
she was accepted.
She was that good.”
Thus, another shining addition was
added to OCSA’s celestial student body
and not long afterward, Dion would
further prove herself
by winning “Backbeat” magazine’s
2015 “Best Pop Blues
Rock Award.”
Dion, who is lead
vocals, and her band
Simple Talk entered
a battle of the bands
at USC earlier this
year. Pitted against
15 other bands—all
with female vocalists—Dion both won
the competition and
the admiration of the
online jazz magazine.
A week before
Backbeat published
Photo courtesy of: Sophia Dion
an article about
Dion, she was notified
Simple Talk had won
the competition and,
as icing on the cake,
the edtiors told her
they would hail her
as the best pop blues
rock vocalist in the
entire competition.
When asked about
what this huge ac-
complishment meant
to her, Dion had one
word, “confidence.”
Boosted by her newfound star status,
Dion plans to continue pursuing music
into her college and
professional career,
hoping to one day
launch a solo career.
Do What You Like cont’d from pg. 3
Gwartz will be opening an Etsy shop
named xclbr to help
fund his goals.
Many seniors still
don’t know what
their future will hold.
Rachel Jorgenson
(CW) excels in both
art and science, and
plans to pursue both.
Jorgenson will attend
Stanford University
this fall and is weighing biochemistry,
English literature, and
perhaps some sort
of engineering. Her
long-term plans are
a career involving
science and writing
novels.
Even with two
interests that seem
such polar opposites,
Jorgenson believes
creative writing helps
her future science
career “because...
exposure to a lot of
different types of writing has helped my
ability to form logical
arguments and think
creatively,” she said.
Said Jorgenson,
“Society at large puts
pressure on you to
pursue math or science as if it’s more
legitimate than arts
careers, and I think
that people at arts
schools understand
much better than
people at other
schools that both
types of careers are
equally valid.”
No matter where
OCSA students go
and do, success will
follow. It’s not an
easy choice to go
after an arts career
or any career, but
with all of the time
they’ve spent on
both the arts and
academics they’ve
virtually ensured success, even if it’s not
the typical definition
of that elusive word.