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Staff Report


STAMFORD -- Besides juggling classes and extracurricular activities, one Westhill High senior is also releasing her own album, and the city's education board has awarded her for her musical accomplishments.

On Tuesday, Jan. 26, the Stamford Board of Education honored Lisa Occhino, a student at Westhill High School, for her achievement of releasing her debut album, "Discovery," and for her upcoming May performance at Manhattan's legendary venue, The Bitter End.

Occhino is donating 20 percent of her CD sales to benefit Stamford's Young Artists Philharmonic (SYAP) outreach music program, a 50-year-old organization that provides a variety of musical performance opportunities for students.

"I think the most effective way to legitimately make a change in the world is by starting in your own community with a cause you truly believe in," said Occhino.

By offering a percentage of her CD sales to SYAP, Occhino hopes to help provide children with the opportunity to be exposed to music.

Currently, the Westhill senior is juggling her music career with a full schedule of classes and activities. Academically ranked in the top 4 percent of her class, she was voted "Most Musical" of the class of 2010.

She is the alto section leader of the Westhill Chamber Singers, who won the Gold Cup at 20th International Choir Competition in Verona, Italy last April. Occhino also has performed in more than a dozen musicals, acted in videos and studied dance for more than 14 years. Occhino is also a part of her high school's concert choir, gospel choir, jazz band, concert band, marching band, Tri-M Music Honor Society, and the Northstar Playmakers dramas and musicals.

Occhino, according to her family, began songwriting at age 12 and has since experimented with fusing elements of jazz, rock, classical, Latin, and pop genres. At 15, her original jazz tune, "Back in the Swing of Things," was selected for the Stamford Young Artists' concert at UConn Stamford, and the following year, another one of her jazz compositions, "Midnight Blues," was performed by the Stamford Young Artists at Stamford High School.

In college, Occhino plans to combine her love for marketing and music by double majoring in songwriting and music business.

To listen to tracks featured on Occhino's upcoming album and learn more about the SYAP outreach program, visit www.LisaOcchino.com.

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