Freshman Sanvik Medavarapu (bottom left), singing “Anyone” by Justin Bieber with Laurissa Romain (middle) and Jake Odmark (middle). “The best part about this Mystery Melody experience was seeing my video alongside Broadway stars and kids across the county,” Medavarapu revealed.
During the winter, as part of All-District Chorus, selected students in the area participated in an exclusive choral event. Encompassing LCPS high schools and two other schools in the area, around 120 students were chosen to participate based on an audition process.
Among those 120 students was freshman Sanvik Medavarapu, a student here at Independence.
The event that Medavarapu and the other students participated in included meeting with choral clinicians through multiple virtual meets. The students were split into four groups, with around 30 students in each. The four groups rotated through different virtual meets, participating in activities led by clinicians. One of those meets was held by Jake Odmark, a Broadway Star.
Medavarapu found that “being able to talk to someone famous was cool,” noting that Odmark was down-to-earth and very good at harmonizing. Odmark talked with each group, giving them tips and tricks, answering questions, and introducing a competition to them.
#MysteryMelody is a competition series Odmark holds on his Instagram page, where Broadway fans are given the opportunity to sing with their favorite stars. In this competition, Odmark will take a famous song and create harmony lines for it, without telling the audience what the song is.
Fans are then asked to submit videos of them performing these harmonies, and Odmark sorts through them and chooses the best ones, compiling them together to reveal the ‘mystery melody.’
Along with the secret melody being revealed, Odmark reveals a surprise lead vocalist. These lead vocalists are also Broadway stars, singing the main melodies alongside the chosen fans and their harmony lines.
During his clinic meet at the District event, Odmark introduced the #MysteryMelody competition to the groups. He would choose four students in each group, meaning only 16 out of the 120 students would be chosen to participate in the video.
Using his phone, Medavarapu sang the harmony line he was assigned, tenor. The recording process was fairly simple, listening to a metronome through headphones so the recordings would be on beat and easily syncable with others.
Odmark sorted through the videos he received, choosing 16 of the best audition videos, Medavarapu being one of those chosen.
Odmark combined the 16 videos, and added videos of him singing the bass harmony and beatboxing along. The lead mystery vocalist was revealed to be Laurissa “Lala” Romain, a Broadway star and actress.
All the videos compiled together revealed the mystery song, Justin Bieber’s “Anyone.”
“[The experience] really made me feel that even though we all weren’t together, we were still able to make music together and enjoy what we really love to do, which is to sing!”
Watch the #MysteryMelody video here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ISMI11CWhrxygvxLFU-waGKWKdAYNdPa/view