By Ella Thomas and Jessica Chow, staff writers
Lifelong singer and Galileo senior Lyla Patel, has been performing at the Noe Valley Farmer’s Market about once a month for the last 4 years. This experience has led her to other opportunities including performing virtually at an Amnesty International event to end the death penalty.
Patel’s love for music comes from her family, as a baby her mom was always singing to her. Growing up with music led her to her passion of singing. Although Patel has been singing her whole life, she started more seriously 6 years ago when she started to learn accompaniment piano.
In 2017, Patel and two other singers formed a trio group. As a trio, they reached out to the coordinator of the farmer’s market after seeing a performance there. After scoring the gig, they performed as a trio for over a year, but by the end of 2018 the two members had moved to different continents, one moving to Paraguay and the other moving to Norway. She added, “It was a lot more pressure performing alone, I had to play my own accompaniment piano and had to sing the entire show.”
Despite being left as a solo artist, Lyla has continued her monthly performances with a setlist of indie pop songs that runs around an hour and thirty minutes. Her covers include songs such as “Valerie” by Amy Winehouse and “Thinkin Bout You” by Frank Ocean. During these performances, Patel receives tips from the audience who enjoy her singing, and some even offer her other opportunities to perform. The Amnesty International event and a Moana themed birthday party for a group of 4 year olds have been the most memorable for her so far. When asked about why she loves to perform, Patel said, “I like directly seeing the impact of my music on others”.
Not everything goes well though, as singing comes with vast difficulties. For instance, there was a time when Patel choked on her spit while performing as well as kids constantly tripping on the wires which caused the sound to cut out. All and all, she enjoys the opportunity to have these performances, since singing is something she always wanted to do. As for Patel’s future in music, she undoubtedly wants to release an Indie Pop EP, which she works on in her free time “I want [the record] to be 100 percent self produced so it feels like it’s really mine”, Patel expressed while speaking about her goal.
However, Patel’s interest extends beyond music, as she has no plans to make music her career, but wants to be a Pediatric Cardiothoracic Surgeon. In her quest to find more experience for her dream career, she went through an internship at Stanford where she learned basic heart surgery techniques. Additionally, she had an internship at Johns Hopkins University that taught her about different diseases and the ways they manifest in the body.
