9-year-old singer brings message of inspiration to F.V. suicide-prevention walk
On Sunday morning in Fountain Valley, Sydney Haik will perform her song “Dreaming With My Eyes Open” for the first time. Hopefully, it will be life-affirming.
The 9-year-old singer will perform the song along with the national anthem at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s Out of the Darkness Community Walk at Mile Square Regional Park. The organizers of the event, which aims to raise funds for suicide-prevention research, found Sydney through a personal connection: Nancy Spratt, who oversees the opening and closing ceremonies, is a friend of her family.
That means another gig for Sydney, who is racking them up briskly these days. The San Juan Capistrano resident sang the national anthem at the Laguna Concert Band’s Memorial Day concert and the year before at Laguna Beach’s Fete de la Musique. On Labor Day weekend, she made the finals at the Boys & Girls Club Idol singing contest in Temecula.
The Fountain Valley performance, though, will represent a breakthrough for Sydney: her first time performing a song written specially for her. Its message of pursuing passions resonates with her as she eyes a musical career.
“I think it describes my journey. My dream to sing could actually come true,” the fourth-grader said. “It’s actually real and not just a dream. I want it to inspire other kids to believe that dreams can come true, even for a 9-year-old.”
Sydney may have gotten her Mile Square gig through family connections, but she has a much wider fan base. Thomas Barsoe, founder of OC Hit Factory, a music academy and production and management company in Anaheim, posted a YouTube video of Sydney recording Sia’s song “Chandelier” in the studio this summer. After an enthusiastic online response, he wrote “Dreaming With My Eyes Open” for Sydney, who began training at his studio this year.
“It was a local vocal coach who had kind of given me a heads-up and said, ‘You’ve got to hear this girl,’ and I get that a lot,” said Barsoe, who noted that Sydney is his youngest client. “Nine out of 10 times, it’s not as impressive as they’d like me to think it is. But with Sydney, it absolutely was.”
On Sunday, Sydney will work her expressive pipes twice: during the opening ceremony, when she’ll sing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and during the closing ceremony, when she’ll sing “Dreaming” as doves are released. The event, which takes walkers around the park, also will feature comedian Jim Taylor as host.
“Dreaming,” a piano-based ballad, marries Sydney’s soulful voice to inspirational lyrics — “I wake up to a brand-new day / realize that everything has changed / in the eyes of the face in the mirror / I see everything so much clearer” — that might have graced an early Whitney Houston album. A full music video for the song, which marks another first for Sydney, is available on YouTube.
Does the song fit the charity walk’s theme? Spratt believes that it does.
“I’m dreaming of a time when we can prevent suicide, and as the walk says, because it’s called Out of the Darkness, we want to bring the subject of mental health and suicide prevention out of the darkness,” Spratt said. “So the song is kind of a metaphor, I guess. We can dream about it.”
*
If you go
What: Out of the Darkness Community Walk
Where: Mile Square Regional Park, 10401 Warner Ave., Fountain Valley
When: Check-in is from 8:30 to 10 a.m. Sunday; opening ceremony about 9:45 a.m.; walk from 10 a.m. to noon; closing ceremony about noon
Cost: Walkers and teams may set fundraising goals (registration cutoff is 3 p.m. Friday)
Information: (855) 869-2377 or jvanderstad@afsp.org