As the sun beat down on the audience of students and staff scattered across the Staller steps on April 7 for the finale of the Stony Brook Idols competition, the six contestants awaited their turns.
Veronica Scorcia, a petite 21-year-old, climbed onto the stage in front of the Staller steps to face the crowd of one hundred. She trembled with nerves.
Her outfit consisted of jean shorts, red heels, a white tank top and silver hoops — or “diva earrings” as she referred to them. It was the third time in her four years at Stony Brook she competed in the competition.
The first year she stole the competition singing “Vision of Love,” by Mariah Carey. But the second time around she didn’t place with her performance of “One Rock and Roll too Many,” by Starlight Express. Now she took the stage for a third and final time.
Moments before the competition, Scorcia paced back and forth, taking in deep breaths that ended with a sigh. Once in a while she would suddenly begin jumping, whaling her arms around in the hopes of getting the nauseous butterfly feeling out of her stomach. “I was terrified to go on stage,” she said. The end of spring semester would be the end of her senior year. She confessed that winning the competition would be the perfect ending.
Center stage, the microphone shook in her hands and her thoughts turned to her mission “do or die.” The music to Christina Aguilera’s hit single, “Ain’t No Other Man,” began to play. Scorcia opened her mouth and began to sing. Her voice carried all the way to the back row.
“Veronica really blew me out of the water,” said Dr. Ellen Li, one of three SB Idol finals judges and wife of President Samuel L. Stanley Jr. “I was shocked that such a small woman could create so much energy. She gave Miss Christina Aguilera a run for her money.”
Students lined up to place their vote in the proper bucket, while the competitors waited for the final decision. It came down to two finalists: Scorcia and Joshua Lim. Standing side by side off stage, Lim was pronounced as runner up, making Scorcia the SB Idol winner. As she rushed to the closest microphone, she gave the audience an enthusiastic “woo hoo.”
“I was really excited,” she said. “It really made my senior year so much better.”
Scorcia’s singing career began at the age of three when her mother bought her a Whitney Houston album, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.” Scorcia recalled singing and dancing to the album everyday of her childhood.
“I was young but every time I turned on that CD I couldn’t help but sing along with it,” she said. “I loved every second of it.”
Scorcia never took singing lessons, and wasn’t involved in the high school chorus. She was however, in school plays and outside theater groups, but always stayed in the back of the crowd.
“I did not have confidence singing at first,” Scorcia remembers, “I always became a nervous wreck singing in public. I knew it was something I loved and was good at, I just needed a push to get started.”
At first, Scorica kept her talent a secret from her friends at Stony Brook. She was quiet, trying her best to blend into her surroundings.
Courtney Blankenship, 21, a friend of Scorcia, first heard Scorcia sing at dance practice. Blankenship was the one who suggested Scorcia try out for SB Idol in 2008.
“I remember thinking that a talent like hers, shouldn’t go to waste,” Blankenship said.
Scorcia, however, didn’t think she had the confidence to do it.
“I thought she was crazy,” Scorcia said. “There was no way I was getting up and singing in front of a live audience alone.”
Scorcia’s dream is to sing professionally and take care of marine mammals as a side job.
Recently, Scorcia auditioned for a spot on Glee, a hit television show on Fox. Whether hired or not Scorcia is determined to make it as a singer.
“Singing is something I want to have a part of me for the rest of my life,” she said. “Becoming a professional singer means the world to me. I’m not stopping at Glee. I have plans to audition for Broadway and also for a spot as the voice of one of Disney’s musical [animation] movies.”
Whatever stage Scorcia lands in the future, she will always remember the people who believed in her and her singing.
