The night began with music and ended with magic on Feb. 2. A Night of Magic with Ron Saylor was a benefit performance for the Bakersfield College Chamber Singers. The proceeds went toward the choir’s upcoming tour in Australia where they will be singing at the Sydney Opera House.

Bakersfield College Chamber Singer’s choral conductor, Dr. Jennifer Garrett, began the event and mentioned that she had met Ron Saylor. She told him that they had raised about $75,000 and still needed $50,000 more. Saylor lent a hand and wanted to do a show for them.

Dr. Garrett stated that the BC Chamber singers were one out of nine performing choirs to be accepted at a conference at San Jose. They sang three musical pieces that will be sung at the conference. One of the pieces performed was written by local composer, Dr. Ron Keen. The audience appeared to be in a state of awe, as the three pieces concluded.

Ron Saylor started off his show full of magic by inviting an audience member to join him on the stage. He gave this audience member, Alison, the book of “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” where she had to pick a page in the book and he had to recite it without looking. They were back to back while this trick was being performed. When they were back to back and the trick was in the works, he slid out a copy of the book and would be specific on what he was citing. The part that amazed the audience was not only was he showing that he had the book in this young girl’s face, but he had revealed that the book was blank.

His third illusion featured his assistant Katie, where she went into a box and was locked in. He placed a saw in between the waist area and started to move the upper half of the box to the side without touching the box. The top part started to slide through and she was basically “cut in half.” Then he showed the audience that she was in half by opening the front door of this box. They posed and he moved the box again to its original state and Katie came out. The audience seemed to really enjoy that magic trick.

Ron Saylor is also known for his mentalist tricks, two of them which shown on the Indoor Theatre stage. One of them needed three audience members and Saylor’s job was to predict what came to the participants’ minds and write it down on a whiteboard. One of the members was a little boy, David, who was given the choice of 52 cards out of a deck, had to choose at random, and then kept the card in mind. The other audience member, Korbyn, was asked by Saylor to think of his favorite person and then Saylor wrote down his prediction. Saylor asked him to reveal his answer, which was Ariana Grande. He asked the third participant, Barbara, to think of her favorite place to visit and repeated the process.

Saylor goes back to the boy and tells him that he’s going to predict what card had by drawing it on the whiteboard. One by one he guessed every single person’s favorite thing, which got a huge reaction.

At the end of the event, the BC Chamber singers posed with Ron Saylor for a picture. After Saylor and his assistant signed autographs and took pictures with the audience members who were in line. It can be stated that the audience for sure left magically satisfied.