On Feb. 25, Singers Producers Songwriters and Musicians (SPSM) hosted “Open Mic Night” in honor of Spirit Week. Eight performances were held in the first hour, before opening the floor up to ‘Free Time’. Angelica Castro-Mendoza’s main motivation was seated from beginning to end. “I think one of my friends is in this, and I wanted to avoid homework,” Castro-Mendoza said.Instruments available included guitars, a keyboard, a guqin, and a ukulele. Songs were sung in a variety of languages: Chinese, English, and Russian. Acts varied from a single performer to up to seven performers total.The night was started off with a beautiful Chinese song sung by Claire Kaixuan Yao, NYU Shanghiai's Student Body President. Following Yao was an a capella group singing “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz, led by Sam Chen. Masha Korteleva took the stage after them with a cover of a Russian song, by an artist who was once arrested for opposing Vladimir Putin. Omer Cohen, Artem Dovzhenko, Fred Cavagnac, and Hamd Bilal Tahir performed a song by MegaDeth after, in great contrast to Agnes Santiano and Hobin Kim’s duet which stole the audience’s hearts.Sevi Reyes seconded the group’s appreciation of Jason Mraz, with a cover of “A Beautiful Mess”. Freshmen Eric Shin and Konrad Krawcyzk got the speakers bumping with an acoustic “A Beauty and the Beat”, with Krawcyzk singing Justin Bieber’s part and Shin rapped an impressive version of Nicki Minaj. The night finished with two jazz numbers on the guitar by junior David Santiano.Free time varied from Chinese songs on the guitar to solos on the keyboard.“It’s not about coming and showing that you’re the best musician in the world, it’s about making music. I mean, I’m the Vice President and my performance sucked, but who cares? It was fun,” SPSM Vice President Omer Cohen said. This article was written by Allison Chesky. Please send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: Savannah Billman.