Story by Aditi Desai and Shriya Deshpande

On Sept. 23, MVHS alumnus Jenn Grinels performed at the auditorium in front of choir students, drama performers and her high school music teacher and professed “#1 fan”: Shari D’Epiro.

Grinels is a rising singer who has sold over 10,000 records and recently released her album

“Broken Heart Breaker” in 2011. She has toured for over eight years, performing in over 1,500 concerts and venues internationally.

The show began with a short but sentimental introduction from D’Epiro. She described Grinels as a strong, motivated, and passionate student with tears in her eyes. Later, MVHS Variations started off the concert by singing the song “Up the Ladder”.

Even though Grinels does not consider herself a prolific writer because of her minimal number of songs produced, her song “No Better” from the album Little Words set the bar high with several thousand hits on her music video.

She realized her musical success didn’t start off as planned, however, because of the lack of companies to promote her music. Grinels spent her first four years without an address and tried to play somewhere each night. Her start of her career was founded upon going to open mics and selling CDs.

Grinels is highly inspired by her friends and other artists such as Red Mountain and the Avid Brothers. She wrote the next song of her set for her friend’s wedding, called “Right From the Start”.

After her performance, D’Epiro thanked Grinels and gave her some of MVHS Variations apparel, a graduation tassel and other items.View photos of the concert in the gallery below.