Amidst the cacophony of a maddening crowd of 2,000-plus, when this 18-year-old girl’s name was announced, all she remembers was walking ahead in a daze to receive the first prize at K-Pop India Grand Finale. Her senses numb, her breathing high, she received the award and was, needless to say, on cloud nine. But the minute she walked down the stage with her prize in hand, she could only shiver and try hard to come back to reality. “Oh my God, I hugged J Heart (member of Korean Pop band N. Sonic),” said Sparsh Bajpai, her eyes twinkling with delight.
A first year student of Sociology (Hons) at Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi, Bajpai has been making a mark in the field of music since quite a young age. She recollects, “As a child, I grew up listening to music and used to sing all the time. My parents introduced me to the world of music and made me listen to ghazals and soft music when they wanted me to calm down. It was only when I was seven that I won a singing competition at school and everyone at home realised that I have a voice that appeals to music lovers.”
As she turned 11, her training began in Contemporary Western music genres such as rock and pop. The songstress confesses that initially she used to “consider Indian Classical music as boring. I didn’t want to learn the ragas and sargams, but later realised that my parents were right in making me learn it. Thus, I started with western but now learn Indian too. Though I was enrolled in a music school initially, soon I realised that training from individual teachers suited me more.” Therefore, she chose to stick to the latter and was soon noticed by the Neemrana Music Foundation.
Performing in Neemrana’s celebrated opera ‘Orfeo, Crossing the Ganges’ was the next achievement for this young and peppy artiste. Alongside, she started attending K-Pop workshops at the Korean Cultural Centre.
“About four or five years ago, K-Pop became extremely popular among my schoolmates. I too started following it, like my friends and started liking even the Korean dramas.” Since she already had the experience of performing in operas and ballads, performing K-Pop on stage became easier.
“Initially I used to just stand in one place and sing but opera taught me how to present myself as a ‘performer’,” she confesses when asked about her ‘star’ attitude on the stage. “Last year infact I got a chance to perform Orfeo in Paris and visit Korea through the workshop that I attended,” she says describing how tense she was after her “mini-world tour”.
“I thought I would not get good grades in 12th Boards. But fortunately, I did get a good result and landed in LSR!” The smile on her face returns as she gears up to compete with winners from across the world for K-Pop 2014 title in Changwon,
South Korea.
Having performed in the opera Romeo and Juliet too, she says she wants “to be part of more such competitions till I complete my graduation and take up Masters in Music at a college abroad,” she says about her future plans asking Metrolife, “Is France good for pursuing higher studies in music or Germany better?”
