By Ben Walker
Staff Writer

On Friday, March 20, many students and parents gathered in the Westford Academy Performing Arts Center to watch peers show off their best talents in the annual “WA’s got Talent.” The show was hosted by English Curriculum Coordinator, Janet Keirstead, who kept the audience entertained with many different puns and jokes throughout the night.

This years judges were Jason Jozokos, science teacher Jenny Kravitz, Class of 2015 president Jack Leeber, Dean Robert Ware, and last year’s winner, Kadar Qian.

The show kicked off with a solo performance by English teacher, Jessie Nitzberg, who sang a cover of “Foolish Games” by Jewel. This was followed by seniors Jackie Joncas and Emily Perrone who sang a duet cover of “Ain’t It Fun” by Paramore.

Later in the first act, senior Satish Bisa came out and rapped his “Graduation” remix to “Best Day Ever” by Mac Miller. This remix was a reflection on how Bisa felt about graduating, and how he is ready to start a new chapter in his life. However before Bisa came out to the stage, Keirstead read a message from Bisa aloud to the audience. In this letter, he thanked his parents for all they have done for him over the years and gave a shout out to his fellow senior classmates.

Just prior to the end of the act, there was a special surprise performance by wellness teacher, Patrick Gendron along with junior, Elijah Richards. They both played the guitar and performed a mash-up of many popular songs.

After a fifteen minute intermission, the second act started with a piano solo as well as a singing solo from senior, Peter Hurley. He was followed by Logan Ahearn and Katie Benting, who did a mash-up of “Thinking Out Loud” by Ed Sheeran and “I’m Not the Only One” by Sam Smith.

Next up was the Bollywood Dance Club. This team was made up of Keerthana Dutta, Madhu Kaushik, Yamini Kumar, and Bhoomi Soni. These dancers did a mix of dances from traditional Indian and Bollywood dance.

The last few performances contained several solo performances, some on the piano and some who just sang. One of these performers was Rittika Adhikari, who was also the eventual winner of the talent show. Adhikari sang “Mercy on Me” by Christina Agulera.

The last student performance was by a student band who played “Heart Out” by The 1975. The band was made up of Evan Doherty, Andrew Leung, Kartik Singh, and Freddy Velasco.

Just before the winner was announced, there was a special surprise performance done by several Westford Academy teachers and faculty members. The performance started off with a classroom setting and “Uptown Funk” by Bruno Mars playing in the background. As the performance went on, the performers started dancing and towards the end, came into the aisles of the PAC. This ended with a roar of applause from the crowd.

When the final results came in, all of the talent show performers came out and the crowd gave them all one final applause. The winners were the Bollywood dancers in third place, Bisa in second place, and as mentioned earlier,  Adhikari in first place.

Leeber was quite happy with the way the show played out this year.

“I think it went great. I think we had some amazing talent… I think everyone just did a great job.” said Leeber.