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Graduating trumpet performance student Adam Bhatia performs at his senior recital. Bhatia credits

For Adam Bhatia, the transition from shy “Star Wars” enthusiast to award-winning trumpet player has been a long time in the making. The graduating trumpet performance student unveiled the fruits of his labors on June 7 at his senior recital, and played so exuberantly that one could have easily forgotten that it was a classical music performance. At one point, someone in the audience yelled “Amen, brotha!” to which Bhatia quickly and proudly acknowledged with a pointed index finger.

When Bhatia announced at the end of his program, “I have one more. This is kind of fun,” audience members had no idea what to expect, but once the familiar melody of “Amazing Grace” began to ring freely from Bhatia’s trumpet, his friends and family proceeded to scream and cheer wildly in the tiny Jan Popper Theater.

At the end of the song, both the pianist and the trumpeter seemed highly pleased with their performance, but Bhatia’s mother, Linda, said such onstage confidence hadn’t always come so easily to her son.

“He’s changed quite a bit,” she said earlier that day while baking cookies at home for the recital. “If you look at the way he performs now, he’s much more comfortable performing, much more comfortable on stage, much more relaxed. He actually seems to enjoy it.”

In high school, Bhatia’s nervousness often showed on stage. He wouldn’t smile, and at the end of a performance, he would bow quickly before exiting. But on Tuesday night, his confidence was very apparent. At various points during the recital, Bhatia went so far as to provide comedic relief. Right before performing “Mars” by Denis Gougeon, Bhatia admitted that he actually knew nothing about the piece. Knowing that he needed to extend his recital to the hour mark, he had simply picked the sheet music up off of his teacher’s desk a week and a half earlier. While shuffling the many pieces of sheet music on two music stands, he quipped that although the piece wasn’t very long at all, there were “a lot of pages,” provoking a laugh from the audience.

This newfound confidence was something that Bhatia learned from his four years at UCLA under the tutelage of Professor Jens Lindemann, as well as his many wins in trumpet competitions. This year, Bhatia helped UCLA’s Trumpet Ensemble win its second straight first-place victory in the National Trumpet Competition after a string of personal wins in solo events. In 2004, Bhatia captured third place in the International Trumpet Guild competition and the Yamaha Young Performing Artist Award. Endorsed by Yamaha, he recently performed for and represented the company at the National Association of Music Merchants show in Anaheim. In addition to these honors, Bhatia has played with famed trumpeter Doc Severinsen and recorded a live concert with Lindemann in Toronto for broadcast on CBC radio.

From birth, music has been a central part of Bhatia’s life.

“When he was an infant, he was a premature baby,” said Linda Bhatia. “He was a little fussy. And in probably the first year of his life, the only thing that would calm him was classical music. You could turn on the classical music and walk with him or sway with him. He just always loved it.”

Growing up in Long Beach, Bhatia knew at an early age that he wanted to come to UCLA, but it was a dream formed long before he had ever picked up a trumpet. UCLA is a family affair for the Bhatias: his father, from whom Bhatia gets his strong work ethic, is a doctor and faculty member at the UCLA medical hospital, while his younger sister is a first-year student studying flute.

Although he’ll be graduating later this week, Bhatia will be coming back in the fall to begin his master’s studies. He’d like to eventually go on to Juilliard, but his ultimate dream is to become a professional studio musician for the Los Angeles movie music industry.

“It’s a very tough scene to break into,” Lindemann said. “But if there’s any student that I have who I felt would be an amazing Los Angeles studio player, it would be Adam. I have absolutely no doubt that when he finally leaves school, he’s going to be one of the truly important players in the Los Angeles studio scene.”

This studio dream was fomented by a course he took at UCLA, Psychology of Film Music, in which he and his classmates learned how the bike pedals in “E.T.” lined up with the beat of the score composed by one-time UCLA student John Williams. Bhatia met Williams, his idol, in October 2004 when he performed in a concert paying tribute to the famous composer. It was the fulfillment of one his longtime goals and a major event for Bhatia, a “Star Wars” aficionado, although he likes to downplay his love of the popular film series.

“I’m not a nerdy ‘Star Wars’ fan,” Bhatia said defensively.

He was quick to note that he doesn’t attend conventions and that it was already the fourth day “Revenge of the Sith” had been out in theaters before he finally saw it. Others, though, would disagree with Bhatia’s self-proclaimed casual interest in the epic films.

“I actually saw him go to a ‘Star Wars’ movie wearing a Storm Trooper mask,” Lindemann said. “He’s a total ‘Star Wars’ geek.”