Nayan Annadurai, a junior at Lambert, was unaware that her high school experience would be dominated by two incredibly disparate facets of her life: music and social activism. 

Annadurai has been playing piano for 4 years, and she believes that this instrument pushed her toward a future filled with music. Annadurai recalls how playing the piano as a young girl led to her current enthusiasm for the band.

Through her experience with piano, she has attended many competitions and won countless awards. 

Annadurai mentions that, for piano competitions, it is required for the competitor to memorize two songs to recite in front of a  judge. The competitors are then ranked based on a scale with ’superior’ being the highest. 

“I compete every year,” Annadurai recounted. “For the past four years, I have gotten superiors on every in-person playing test.” 

Annadurai was destined to play percussion in the Riverwatch Middle School band because of her prowess at the piano.

Her journey as a percussionist continued into high school when she joined the marching band and drumline her freshman year. 

Other than her passion for music, Annadurai prides herself on being a social activist. 

“I’m part of this organization for fighting for diversity, equity and inclusion called Students for DEI,” Annadurai states. 

She was introduced to Students for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion when she attended a Whisper meeting, an organization that focuses on in-person conversations and intimate connections. It was there that she met another student who shared her passion in social justice. 

“We were talking about how Instagram is very performative and how reposting something is kind of nothing,” Annadurai mentioned. “We started finding other ways to help the community more in an impactful way, and that is when he introduced me to SDEI.” 

She mentioned that her first event with the organization was actually at a school board meeting discussing the fairly recent decision to ban certain books in school libraries.

“They were banning books because they thought it was including inappropriate content, but really the hidden meaning was pertaining to the LGBTQ+ community and addressed topics of race,” Anadurai states. 

Although it was her first time speaking in front of the school board, a local news station noticed her and later aired her statement on this issue. 

Annadurai also brings her passion for politics to school where she is part of the National Social Studies Honors Society, a club that focuses on history and politics, and has her own club called the National Organization for Women where they plan to organize rallies and fundraisers for women’s rights. 

Although her interests are on two ends of the spectrum, activism and percussion, have played a significant role in the junior’s life, and she hopes that she can use her proficiency in both of these topics and play in a college band and become a lawyer in the future.