For as long as she can remember, senior Victoria Pereira has been interested in the arts. As a child, she gravitated toward music, participating in theater, playing the piano and acting in musicals. In late middle school, she started to play around more with writing her own music, composing songs on her piano when she was bored or for fun. She became more interested in writing and decided to teach herself how to play the guitar.

“Learning how to play the guitar was what made me start to take music more seriously,” Pereira said. “I started to be able to compose and sing more songs.”

Soon after she learned how to play the guitar, composing and writing songs became a consistent hobby. Pereira started going to recording studios to record songs and has released several songs on music streaming platforms. 

Currently, she describes her musical style as alternative pop, but hopes to expand to other genres in the future. 

“I am really interested in exploring new types of music, and it is definitely one of my goals as an artist,” Pereira said.

Though she first started creating music for fun, it has become an outlet for her to express herself and explore her emotions. Many of her songs allow her to de-stress or communicate her feelings through an art form. Her songs can be relatable for people who are similar in age or have similar experiences.

“I hope people can relate to the emotions in my music and find my songs comforting and calming, like how I feel when I am writing,” Pereira said.

Since Pereira is self-taught, she hopes to gain more classic training in the future. In college, she hopes to major or minor in something music-related. Another goal is to add more personal elements to her music, such as connections to her mixed heritage and background. 

“My culture and background is very important to me, and I hope to explore and use more of that in my music,” Pereira said. “I have already started to explore Spanish music and would like to do more.”