From the page to the stage, Ishaan Arora is stepping into the spotlight.

Though he got his start in music playing the violin, the second-year music industry student is now a performer of many talents. Arora writes songs, sings and plays a range of instruments, but he said his love for singing only began after he performed in a seventh-grade talent show. The experience inspired him to get involved in theater and choir, he added, and later, songwriting became appealing.

“Something clicked for me in terms of poetry and just writing, conveying your emotions in a manner that’s original but gets a universal message across,” Arora said.

According to Arora, his style is folk and indie-pop, with influences like Adrianne Lenker, Lizzy McAlpine and Matt Maltese. He said these artists make poetry set to a tempo – not just songs – which is something he also strives to do. When it comes to lyrics, Arora said he uses personal connections for inspiration. His songs are not always about romantic connections, but are sometimes about family or friends as well, he added.

Arora will perform an original song at Spring Sing titled “This Hill.” The song, he said, was a challenge he set for himself to turn the idiom “die on this hill” into music. He wanted to capture the heartbreak of having a loved one who is unwilling to change their mind, Arora said. Unlike his other songs that can be up to audience interpretation, he added, “This Hill” is direct and tells a story. Arora said he enjoys incorporating double entendres into his lyrics, something he does in the chorus about an imminent landslide.

“There’s a line in there that’s, ‘You don’t try and stand, but you swear there’ll be a landslide,’” he said. “So it’s ‘stand,’ like physically stand, but also ‘stand’ as a shorthand for understand.”

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Joey Situ, a first-year political science and sociology student at UC Berkeley, met Arora in high school. The pair performed in choir and musical theater together, co-starring in “Bye Bye Birdie,” and Situ said Arora is meticulous about his work. In high school, she added that Arora would go through each word of a script and analyze how it was meant to be read. His thoughtfulness, Situ said, also translates into his original songs.

“He’ll think about each word and how it fits in and how it shapes the song altogether,” she said. “He’ll do different structures. Some of his songs have a more poetic structure, like a certain number of lines and repetition. Things like that I don’t really see many artists using.”

Arora said Spring Sing will be a big step toward his goal of being a professional songwriter or performer. During his first year at UCLA, a friend sent Arora information about the competition, but he said he did not have a performance song ready then. This year, he said he was ready to put his best foot forward. However, he did not have a video of himself performing for an audience during the audition process, so members of Spring Sing set up a performance for him on the Hill, Arora added. Despite this appearance, Spring Sing will be Arora’s first time performing in front of a large audience, he said, which brings an uncertainty in emotions, especially since the song he will showcase is particularly personal to him.

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Arora does not appear nervous at all when he performs, according to Korinna Dunn, a second-year musicology student. Dunn said she met Arora in the winter, when the two performed in a production of “Footloose” put on by HOOLIGAN Theatre Company on campus. She said Arora gives his all when he performs and did the same for “Footloose.” He was determined to perfect a dance scene in the performance, Dunn said, prompting a late-night rehearsal at the John Wooden Center.

“He’s very in tune with intention and wanting to convey a certain message through song by vocal timbre and use of riffs, if it’s appropriate for the song,” Dunn said.

Dunn attended Arora’s performance on the Hill and said she enjoyed seeing him perform original songs in the live show setting, as opposed to a casual one. She said his stripped-down style captures audiences’ attention, inviting audience members to feel the emotions in his songs. Arora hopes his performance will help him get a better sense of whether his music reaches an audience the same way it reaches him when he sings, he said.

“He’s always been a very strong writer, but I do think that he’s become a little more confident in himself since getting to UCLA,” Situ said. “He’s been surrounded by a lot of good mentors and other students who are also working on songs. He’s gotten to grow a lot in terms of what he thinks about himself.”