Senior opera singer wins Saratoga Idol

As senior Nadia Younes carefully crooned the last note in her rendition of “Toxic” by Britney Spears, the crowd burst into a standing ovation. Younes was later crowned the winner of this year’s Saratoga Idol held on Dec. 1 in the McAfee Center.

Younes has never participated in the event before this year, which made the win unexpected for her. Nevertheless, because of her background singing opera, she impressed the audience with her vocal abilities.

“When [the announcers] called my name, I was really shocked because there were a lot of other great performances,” Younes said. “It felt good to know that people voted for me even though I didn’t have many people there for me.”

The show was emceed by senior Natalie Miller and junior Isa Berardo. After last-minute cancellations from two of the three teacher judges, the judging panel expanded to include professional singer Andy Kline and manager of the rock band Smash Mouth, Robert Hayes as well as MAP teacher Cathy Leather.

“I was really happy with our judges,” junior class president Darby Williams said. “I think [the guest judges] were able to give a more professional opinion, but it was also good to have at least one teacher because she  knew the students.”

The night began with a surprise opening act put on by the ASB. They sung a hilarious acapella performance to warm up the crowd including songs “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and “Don’t Stop Believing.”

“It was better than I thought it was going to be,” ASB vice president junior Luke Salin said. “I’m glad that some people were able to laugh along with it.”

The actual competition started with senior Alexandria Bauer singing “Smile” by Lily Allen. Junior Lily Hu followed up Bauer’s performance with “Speak Now” by Taylor Swift. Then, sophomore Esha Krishnamoorthy sang “Just Don’t Let Me Go,” a song she wrote herself. Krishnamoorthy finished in second place.

Afterwards, senior Colleen Fleming sang “Valerie” by Amy Winehouse. Following Fleming, senior Deepti Kanan sang “Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera before the intermission.

Following the intermission, senior Jennifer McAfee sang “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac while Alec Furlong played the guitar. After that performance, junior Michael Z. Guo showed off his versatility by singing “She Will Be Loved” by Maroon 5 while simultaneously playing the piano.

The competition ended with three acts by senior Nik Aji, junior Camille Bismonte, who finished third, and eventual-winner Younes. Aji tackled “Sweet Life” by Frank Ocean, and Bismonte showed off her range with “Feeling Good” by Nina Simone.

While audience members were voting, junior Nina Nelson, who won the first competition two years ago, entertained the audience by singing “Chandelier” by Sia while junior Chloe Koon danced on stage.

This year, the show did not include multiple rounds of competition, but instead had all performers prepare one song for the audience to choose one winner from at the end. Williams said that this was to enable the show to feature more performers but also not be too long.

The show also tried a new system of voting through text messages from the audience rather than using paper ballots. Though there were some technical difficulties, Williams found the text voting more fair and convenient, and recommends it to be used by future junior classes.

“I actually would recommend that [next year’s officers] use text voting because it's actually easier and in my opinion more fair,” Williams said. “We just had technical issues with it because it was the first time we used it.”

Despite some issues with voting, junior class officers said the show was still a success with 117 tickets sold.

“Overall I thought it was a success under the circumstances,” Williams said.