Guitar players strike a chord at Talent Show
The Hudsonian Student Newspaper | The Hudsonian
By Pat Gareau
Editor-in-Chief
Music acts rose above the rest at the Spring Talent Show on Friday night. All three prize winners either sang or played an instrument, and the winner did both.
Trevor Henderson was awarded first place for his performance of “Talladega” by Eric Church. He played acoustic guitar and sang the country hit, which reached Number 2 on the Billboard Hot Country chart in February. Henderson won a $250 gift card to the Viking Cove Bookstore for his winning performance.
“It’s my first kind of, like, engagement with other students, so it felt really good to be able to come out here and actually play,” said Henderson.
Henderson is from Malone, in northern New York near the Canadian border. He is in his first year at Hudson Valley as a criminal justice major. He has played on stage before at high school events and at the town fair in Malone.
He hopes to be able to find gigs locally in the near future. “This summer I’m hoping to get into a couple bars in Albany,” said Henderson.
Bobby Van Ness came in second place for his display of skill playing the electric guitar. He has been playing guitar for about seven years and, like Henderson, has experience playing on stage. Van Ness won a talent show held after a robotics competition that he attended in St. Louis, performing in front of over 1,000 people. The first-year engineering science major left the talent show to head to a meeting with his robotics team to get ready for a competition at RPI.
Van Ness wasn’t too disappointed in not winning this talent show and thought Henderson was deserving of the top prize.
“It’s fun to come out here. I wasn’t really looking for the win. I didn’t even know that there was a prize. I just thought it would be kind of cool to come out and test the waters. Trevor was really good. When you have that kind of ability to sing like that as well, it adds a little something, and that’s something I don’t have,” said Van Ness.
For winning second place, Van Ness received a $100 gift card to the Viking Cover Bookstore.
The third-place finisher was Nicole DeSaulniers, who finished the night by singing “Take a Bow” by Rihanna and received a $50 gift card for her performance.
A total of nine acts performed for the crowd of over 70 people in the BTC auditorium. In addition to musical acts, the performances included poetry and juggling.
John Dietsch did a juggling act that included a comedic narrative about the struggle of learning to juggle at higher levels of difficulty with more balls in the air.
“I was just glad to make everyone laugh a little bit and show what I could do,” said Dietsch, who finished by juggling five balls at once.
The show was hosted by student senators Adam Day and Jacob Kamen. Performers were judged by a panel primarily composed of Student Senate leaders and one judge who evaluated each based on the cheering from the crowd.
“I think the acts were fantastic. They were all great. They took a lot of time out of their week to perform for us, and they all did great. If I could give everyone $250 to the bookstore, I would have,” said Day.