SPOTLIGHT: SENOVIO K. SHISH ’05

Each group is unique; the contrast between the two performance styles [between Mariachi and Classical] allows me to connect with the violin/viola and the audience in different ways. I also really enjoyed composing music for CityStep in the spring of 2002 and 2004. I worked with other Harvard students and local elementary school students to create thematic music to go along with a dance they choreographed, and that experience was a lot of fun and extremely rewarding.

Although he has found a creative outlet for his musical endeavors at Harvard, Shish had contemplated enrolling in a conservatory instead. His involvement in the arts community at Harvard has enhanced his educational experience.

Coming out of high school, I had a tough time deciding whether or not I should go to a conservatory and train professionally, but I’ve been happy with the amount of time I can spend on performance while getting a liberal arts education. I am actually inspired by the other amazing musicians here at Harvard that could easily have gone to a conservatory. By coming here they’ve helped create a vibrant music community, which has nourished me over the years. As any student musician can attest, involvement in musical groups can compete with schoolwork, but for the most part, musical performance provides a type of intellectual stimulation that complements and may even improve academic work.

After graduation, Shish plans on joining a mariachi band and playing viola in an amateur orchestra. Although graduation is a few months away, Shish has a full slate of performances ahead of him right here at Harvard which include playing viola in the Gilbert and Sullivan Players’ production of “Princess Ida.”

Mariachi Veritas has taken me to around Cambridge, East Boston, Billerica, and Lawrence, Mass., and we’re taking a trip to the Philadelphia area for a series of benefit concerts in early May. On April 15th at 8 p.m. in Sanders, I’ll play my last HRO Concert, and Mariachi Veritas will have its spring concert on April 16th at 7:30 in Fong Auditorium. I’m also part of a quintet which will perform the Brahms clarinet quintet in the Music 93r concert in the second week of May.

—Cassandra Cummings