How Singing for Charities Helped Anika Become a Performing Artist of the Year
Anika’s passion for singing and volunteering made her better at both.
Anika started singing lessons at the age of seven. Hearing her sing tunes from Avril Lavigne, Taylor Swift and Kelly Clarkson around the house, her parents enrolled her at Famous Performing Arts in northern Sydney. By age eight, she was entering competitions and exams all over Sydney.
This year, with a Diploma of Music already under her belt through the International Music Examination Board, and a Beecroft Youth Award for Young Performing Artist of the Year, Anika commenced a Bachelor of Music (Performance) at the Australian Institute of Music. She also works casually at Famous as a vocal coach.
“Singing really helped me develop my own confidence on stage,” Anika says. “As a very dramatic kid, the ‘musical theatre’ setting I was placed in with support of my singing teacher allowed me to grow in my musical capabilities.”
Anika’s performance experiences often served the community. At Famous, her coach nudged her towards singing opportunities at Ku-ring-gai Council events. Anika found herself performing at Mental Health Week and a Light the Night event for the Leukaemia Foundation. “Since I started quite young, the connections at first were very driven by my vocal studio,” she says. “But as I got older, I was able to start getting contacts from others within the music industry that would support me in singing for charitable causes. For example, I started working closely with the Beecroft Rotary Club through one of my contacts, and volunteered to perform at the Young at Heart Festival, which celebrates the contribution of elder people within our society as a means of community cohesion with younger generations.” Her wide variety of community singing experiences ultimately saw Anika recognised with a Beecroft Youth Award for Young Performing Artist of the Year in 2023.
Anika’s path might sound logical: nurture your talent, challenge yourself, and give back to your community. Yet students face a blizzard of competing pressures, especially in late high school, and the safest path to graduation often seems to lie through opportunities curated within the school bubble.
Students hear a lot of well-meaning advice on the theme of getting “focussed” and preparing for the future. Sometimes it means checking out of activities, like running or football, that have become a chore, or in which any plausible dreams of superstardom have been snuffed out by elite state-record-setting peers. Sometimes it just means your parents want to see you pen a past paper.
At the same time, new opportunities - often reserved for senior students - open up. Not just privileges, like the back seat of the bus or access to the Year 12 area, but jobs like prefect roles, lead roles in the school play, and committees for assemblies, formals, fundraisers, yearbooks and more. The strength of these roles is also the weakness: they are often internal to the school, rather than external in the wider community. A well-worn road with captive audiences and staff supervision, compared to a grassier road of initiative and community engagement.
The cross-current of shedding extra-curriculars and absorbing school leadership roles limits support for students seeking opportunities beyond school, at the precise moment when students are newly capable of, and stand to benefit from, looking outwards.
Volunteering helped Anika become a better artist
Anika found that performing in community settings not only honed her skills but opened further artistic opportunities.
Volunteering opens doors
Anika raves about the connections she has made through her public performances at local events and open mics. “Connections are so important as an artist in the entertainment industry,” she says. “The more you build, the more exposure you get towards improving your craft.”
Volunteering allows you to experiment
Formal training and exams can create pressure to play it safe. “Since from a young age, I was very focused on competitive singing, volunteer performances have allowed me to experiment with new sounds, without the pressure of impressing a judge,” Anika explains.
Volunteering widens your perspective on the community
It is also beneficial for artists to understand how their art fits into the bigger picture, and the role of communities in fostering talent. Anika’s charity performances have introduced her to a wide variety of causes and shone a light on how small teams of determined people make the world better every day. “Volunteering is so important to me,” she says. “It has allowed me to understand the vast array of ways that our community can work together towards bettering the world around us - whether this is in a musical way such as busking for a cause or helping out at local childcares, volunteering plays such a crucial role in making a real difference.”
Anika’s advice
While Anika sees herself as still in the early stages of her volunteering journey, she’s certain of one thing. “There’s always a way to become a leader even if you haven’t figured out your personal niche just yet,” she says. Leadership and volunteering opportunities can be found online by googling local groups and events, or setting alerts on websites like Ethical Jobs or university resources. Anika says her experience shows how a small step forward quickly opens more opportunities, at both the community and professional level. “Don’t limit yourself into thinking you can’t volunteer because you’re unsure which direction to take,” she says. “Something I’ve learnt is that in our community, there is always so much room for growth.”
Applications for the 2024 Beecroft Youth Awards, hosted by the Rotary Club of Beecroft, are open now until Friday 8 March 2024.