In the Great Room of Jones Hall, a small crowd would often form around the piano when cherub Vidyuth Sridhar of Fremont, California, was at the bench. Cherubs recorded his performances or sang along as he took their requests. His musical expertise runs the gamut, and he played everything from “Runaway” by Ye to “Rewrite the Stars” from “The Greatest Showman.”
Sridhar, who has 12 years of experience, requires no sheet music to play his songs. If he had heard the song before, he could play it from memory. If he hasn’t, he looks at the chords before playing it.
“It’s a great experience,” he said. “You come down and sing along, and hear songs in ways that you hadn’t heard before because it’s on the piano instead of the radio.”
Sophie Gardiner of New York said she was impressed with Sridhar’s ability to play “on the spot so passionately.”
“Whenever I pass by and hear piano, I always go take a peek in and there’s usually a group of people sitting on the stairs singing,” she said. “It’s a very beautiful scene.”
Gardiner said that she and some other cherubs once asked Sridhar to play songs from the musical “Hamilton” for them.
“He played ‘You’ll Be Back,’” she said. “We all started to sing and dance along. It was just a really fun way to end our day.”
Sridhar enjoys playing the piano precisely for the reactions of people like Gardiner.
“I really like brightening everyone’s day,” he said. “I think it makes people bond with each other, and singing is really cathartic.”
Sridhar also performed at Cherubs Got Talent, where he played “Viva la Vida” by Coldplay. He earned 25 instructor points for his group and was awarded the Roger Boye Community Spirit Award. During the performance, cherubs turned their phone flashlights on and sang along. Josh Singer of Rockville, Maryland, led the performance by singing through a megaphone.
“I thought it would be funny, since my last name is Singer, if I actually sang,” he said. “And you could pretty much only hear me if you were in maybe a 10-foot radius, but I had a great time.”
Sridhar said that he “felt validated” while playing, but not because of the piece’s difficulty level.
“I was seeing so many people who were genuinely having so much fun,” he said. “They were singing along with friends and really having a memorable cherubs experience, and I was glad that I could be a part of making that memory for them.”
