Students compose a song to express their Covid-19 pandemic experience – Times of India

PUNE: Class X teacher of The Academy School (TAS), Sujata Cukkemane initiated a creative approach and encouraged students to express their feelings, emotions and experience of the pandemic through poems, dance, art, or any of their unique skills. Student Aaron Winget penned down ‘Amazing Time’ cherishing the little things during the Covid-19 crisis and was performed along with Aryan Nair and Anuvansh Chaudhary. Taking notice of the potential talent, Dr. Maithili Tambe, CEO, TAS, decided to professionally produce the song and encourage the students.

The song was first performed at their virtual class assembly conducted last year. The first audio and video recording was shot at home on their cell phones and mixed and compiled together as a virtual choir video together by the school music teacher Savio Sebastian. Aditi Khandkar, another student of Grade 10, put together clips and images for the first video of the song.

Sujata Cukkemane said “While brainstorming for ideas for Grade 10 assembly, we constantly hit dead ends. That is when I thought that each one will do what he/she loves, and trusted my heart that things will fall in place. Aaron was to write the theme song. Within half an hour, Aaron composed a song straight from the heart. It was a wonderful amalgamation of different talents, all tied together securely with the song ‘Amazing Time’.”

Aaron composed it in flat 20 minutes. The other two singers, Aryan and Anuvansh teamed up with Aaron and the song was born. This is the reason TAS proves to be the perfect balance of classroom education and education from the world around peppered with extra-curricular activities that bring out the best creativity in a student.

Aaron Jesse Winget, who composed the song, said, “‘Amazing Time’ was penned down as we were discussing our last class assembly. The discussion brought so much positivity and enthusiasm that the lyrics just came out. As I wrote, the music, too, kept bubbling in my head and in thirty minutes we had it ready. To me, ‘Amazing Time’ is not just a song, it is a testament of how we not only survived but also thrived during one of the most difficult phases of our lives.”

Anuvansh Choudhary, the singer of Amazing Time, says, “Singing and performing a song professionally was a whole new experience for me. The studio recording introduced me to a whole new world of music. The fun of retaking shots and trying different angles each time made me realize the amount of hard work that has to be done to make the words of a song come alive. This journey will be going down in my book of amazing times.”

Aryan Nair, Grade X, says “It is a song that expresses the difficult times we had to go through and find excitement in moments as we cherish our families and friends. It’s a song that shows how our school was resilient and looking ahead to have a blast instead of brooding and being depressed.”