Music showcases taste of classical Indian sounds

BY GEORGE BASLER
Press & Sun-Bulletin

Misty Shah, 14, a freshman at Vestal High School, poses in front of one of her eight paintings exhibited at Barns & Noble Booksellers in Vestal.

 

THOMAS LA BARBERA / Press & Sun-Bulletin

VESTAL -- Misty Shah can't remember a time when she hasn't done painting and drawing.  

As a youngster, the 14-year-old Vestal High School freshman would scribble on "whatever I could get my hands on" with crayons and pencils.

The same thing holds true with music. Shah has sung "as long as I can remember" and is now training her voice to sing Indian classical music. She works with a teacher in India when she and her parents return for summer visits, and continues practicing year-round in her Vestal home.

Both of Shah's talents are now on public display.

Eight of her paintings, acrylic on canvas, are on display this month at Barnes & Noble Booksellers in Vestal. And this fall, Shah will release her second CD of Jain devotional songs. Shah practices the traditional Indian religion of Jainism.

"She's a multi-talented young lady," said Anita Mangiaracina, a Town of Chenango artist and art teacher who has worked with Shah. She's also "a sensitive young lady with common sense," Mangiaracina said.

A main subject in Shah's paintings is nature. She is attracted to nature, she said, because it "conveys peace and serenity" at a time when "so much is going on in the world."

The paintings on display at Barnes & Noble are landscapes of places that the family has visited, including Alaska, Yellowstone National Park and the Florida Everglades.

Shah works to get the same feelings of peace and serenity into her music. She recorded her first CD of devotional songs when she was 10 years old. She composes her own melodies to go with words from ancient Indian religious texts.

She recorded her first CD in India. This time, she is sending cassettes of her melodies to India for musicians there to lay down the instrumental tracks. She is then recording the vocal tracks and mixing the CD at a local recording studio.

"This student has a good game plan," said Howard Uhrlass, a school counselor at Vestal Middle School, where Shah was a student last year. "She's very talented and well-disciplined, a joy to have in the school building."

Shah sells her CDs over her personal web site, www.mistymelodies.com. But she doesn't keep a dime. All the money raised after expenses goes to charities helping underdeveloped counties.

The money adds up. Sales of her first CD generated some $17,000 in donations to charity.

"It'a drop in the ocean, but I feel at least I'm doing something," the teenager said.

As for the future, Shah is thinking about a career in the medical field. In the short term, she plans to audition for the Vestal Voices chorus at the high school, after singing in the honors chorus in middle school.

Whatever she does in the future, music and art will always be part of her life, she said.

"They're a very good way to express a person's inner emotions," Shah said. "They're the best way to express peace."