Sap­na Seep­aul is an 18-year-old lo­cal clas­si­cal singer from Debe who is cur­rent­ly en­rolled as a year three Bach­e­lors of Ed­u­ca­tion stu­dent at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go. The cur­rent cham­pi­on of the Ma­hat­ma Ghan­di Char­i­ta­ble Or­gan­i­sa­tion’s (MG­CO) Youth Tal­ent Com­pe­ti­tion, re­cent­ly placed sec­ond at the NCIC/Co­ca Co­la Youth Champ Com­pe­ti­tion. Ad­di­tion­al­ly she copped the ti­tle for Best Lo­cal Clas­si­cal item at the same com­pe­ti­tion.

Singing since the age of nine, the pe­tite Sap­na has en­tered nu­mer­ous com­pe­ti­tions. To name a few, she has been a three-time fi­nal­ist in the Chil­dren of Mas­tana, five-time fi­nal­ist in the NCIC Youth Champ, fifth place win­ner in the na­tion­wide Ladies Clas­si­cal Singing com­pe­ti­tion, sec­ond place win­ner in the Choti Sangam TV pro­gramme and a five-time fi­nal­ist in the Ma­hat­ma Ghan­di Char­i­ta­ble Or­gan­i­sa­tion’s (MG­CO) Youth Tal­ent Com­pe­ti­tion, where she emerged as the win­ner for 2019. Amazed by her ac­com­plish­ments, we reached out to Sap­na for an in­sight on her jour­ney as a young In­di­an clas­si­cal singer. This is what she had to share with the WE Mag:

Shane Ramlochan | SR Digital Photography

How has your singing ca­reer changed since win­ning the MG­CO Youth Tal­ent?

Hon­est­ly, it has been on­ly a cou­ple of weeks since win­ning the com­pe­ti­tion and it re­al­ly hasn’t sunk in as yet. How­ev­er, I have re­ceived some more calls to per­form in pro­grammes for the Di­vali sea­son.

What are you work­ing on at present, what is keep­ing you ex­cit­ed?

This might seem strange, but I re­cent­ly start­ed learn­ing to ride a dirt bike. Some friends of mine are bik­ers who go hik­ing and off-road bik­ing, and it’s re­al­ly nice to take a break from school work and the like, to do some­thing phys­i­cal. As for singing, I am al­ready prepar­ing for next Di­vali by learn­ing new songs.

What is your ul­ti­mate goal or biggest dream for your fu­ture?

Be­sides fin­ish­ing my de­gree and get­ting a job, my great­est pas­sion is work­ing with an­i­mals. I hope to be able to res­cue as many an­i­mals as I can. I ab­solute­ly ab­hor an­i­mal abuse but due to space re­stric­tions, I can­not adopt any more (an­i­mals) at the mo­ment.

What do you be­lieve should be done to keep the her­itage alive and take the tra­di­tion for­ward?

A few years ago, Lo­cal Clas­si­cal Singing was ba­si­cal­ly a dy­ing art, how­ev­er, in re­cent years I have ob­served that shows with this type of singing are filled to ca­pac­i­ty and very well ap­pre­ci­at­ed. This is so en­cour­ag­ing for per­form­ers. I do hope that in the fu­ture, this type of singing will be giv­en more recog­ni­tion by the nec­es­sary in­sti­tu­tions in or­der to con­tin­ue pre­serv­ing the art.

What is the great­est chal­lenge for you as a Clas­si­cal Singer?

I have the great­est group of mu­si­cians who are al­ways ready to per­form with me, how­ev­er, due to re­stric­tions with their job or school, they may not be avail­able all the time and find­ing mu­si­cians, es­pe­cial­ly drum­mers that can play for my genre of singing, is a chal­lenge. Many times, I have to turn down an op­por­tu­ni­ty to per­form be­cause the hosts do not have the right mu­si­cians.

Do you have any ad­vice for oth­er young women who may want to get in­to clas­si­cal In­di­an singing?

Not for young women on­ly, but for every­one in­ter­est­ed in lo­cal clas­si­cal, I would say go for it…don’t hold back. Get your­self as­so­ci­at­ed with some­one who is versed in the style and take that per­son’s ad­vice.

Why do you do what you do?

Well be­sides all the en­cour­age­ment from my par­ents, friends and fam­i­ly, most peo­ple see a young per­son go­ing to per­form and ex­pect a film song and it is such a won­der­ful feel­ing when you sur­prise an au­di­ence when you sing the un­ex­pect­ed. I al­ways get ku­dos for choos­ing this genre.