Two Winners For South East Idol

On March 25 South East High School’s staff and students attended and voted for the 2010 South East Idol.
The time of the year finally came for SEHS to choose 2010’s South East Idol. The South East Idol winner is determined by the audience, applauses and excitement filled the auditorium.
The winner for 2010’s South East Idol was not one, but two students. Giselle Rivera, a sophomore, and John Belton, a junior, who performed “A Whole New World” were this years winners. It is the first time that SEHS has had two winners for South East Idol. “You have a great voice and John too,” said Ms. Vallens a teacher from the Visual and Performing Arts academy, one of the judges.
The judges had time to make their decision and reduced the number of 13 contestants to the top three finalists. The top three finalists were Sandy Navarro who performed “Sway”, Giselle Rivera and John Belton who performed the duet for “A Whole New World”, and Alejandra Gastelum who sang “Stand By Me”.
At the competition, the judges scored the contestants based on their performance and vocal quality and these six judges were Ms. Chavez, Ms. Ramirez, Ms. Mangiliman, Ms. Vallens, Mr. Orosco, and Ms. Barragan.
The event was held on Thursday, March 25 in the SEHS auditorium, at 6 p.m. The pre-sale tickets were $4 and $5 if purchased at the door on the day of the event. It was free for all SEHS employees.
“This year we have two groups of two people performing duets. We will also be having special guests of the winners from 2008 and 2009,” said Ms. Gragera, the choir director fo the Visual and Performing Arts Academy.
The winner of South East Idol for 2008, Krystle Gutierrez performed first and 2009’s winner, Ashley Bailon performed last, right before the judges made the decision at the end to pick the last three finalists.
Cristian Pelayo, a junior and Oscar Tranquilino, a senior at SEHS sang one of the duets: “Kryptonite”. John Belton and Giselle Rivera performed the second duet, which was Disney’s Aladdin theme song, “A Whole New World”.
On March 4 and 5 Gragera held auditions in room P100 during lunch and after school. Students auditioning were asked to sing a verse and chorus of the song they wished to present. The singers had a choice to perform individually, as a duet, or in a group. Their options were to sing acapella (which means without a track), with an instrument, or with a CD with the selected song.
One contestant Bryan Elias, a junior at SEHS, said, “Well, I feel nervous and nauseas every time I think about South East Idol, but every time I sing, all that doesn’t matter I just step inside the song that I am singing and I close my eyes and soon I’m in another world. I don’t know who will win, but what I do know is that everyone has a chance to win and I only wish the best for all of the contestants.”
After they auditioned Gragera elected 13 contestants that she thought they were able to fit the critiques. “I had a really good job with the auditions, so that’s why I had a really hard time making my decision,” said Gragera.