Allison Ball

The National YoungArts Foundation was established in 1980 with the mission to identify and recognize outstanding young artists at critical junctures in their lives—the high school to college transition. Since its founding, YoungArts (youngarts.org)  has recognized over 20,000 young people through their awards programs and has provided life-changing experiences,  fostered connections with colleges, professional training programs, and most importantly, provided life-long connections between young artists  who go on to build artistic communities and inspire each other to imagine new artistic possibilities. YoungArts supports the development of arts and the education thereof in schools, at homes and in communities. For many alumni, their artistic possibilities have been realized with careers on the Broadway stage, Hollywood and television, opera houses and symphonies, being represented in internationally known museum collections, listings as NY Times bestsellers, and receiving Emmy, Oscar and Tony awards. The best part of these stories is that they stem out of programs consistent with CYD principles.

For YoungArts to realize its mission of recognizing the next generation of artists, we build relationships across a wide and diverse spectrum of arts education providers to identify the outstanding student artistic achievement in music, theater, dance, visual arts, and writing. Over our almost 35 year history, YoungArts has developed strong  relationships with hundreds of high school teachers across all types of schools, individual artists, and dozens of focused after-school arts programs, community arts organizations and summer programs.

In addition to identifying outstanding young artists from across the country, YoungArts’ provides the hundreds of winners chosen each year with week-long programming that has both an intensive experience within their particular discipline as well as opportunity to experience working across disciplines.  Students learn, are challenged and are inspired by their work with Master teachers such as Placido Domingo, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Rosie Perez, Bill T. Jones and Wynton Marsalis. And the students also learn from the collective of fellow artists who are assembled together for the week, meeting young artists like themselves in a shared experience.

It is often from this shared experience, that new art, new perceptions, new possibilities are imagined as students are encouraged to reach out beyond their discipline and create a performance or new work.  For the first time a dancer works with a visual artist or a sculptor works with a film maker or an actor works with a photographer, or a writer works with a musician. And so for the participants in YoungArts, another artistic learning connection is made—that of learning from one artist to another and imagining the creative potential across one art form to another. YoungArts alumni often cite this learning connection—artist to artist and the multiple discipline connections—as the most impactful and powerful to their growth as an artist.

The learning connections for young artists are many—from individual teacher, to school, to community, to fellow artist. And going forward, the learning will continue to expand, as artists are collaborative learners, sharing their experiences with their peers and seeking connections with others who share their intensity of commitment to their art. For most of the students in the YoungArts program, art ‘chose’ them and creating art will be their life’s work. And for those students who choose to pursue other interests as they transition from high school to college, the way of seeing as an artist---the ability to see multiple possibilities, imagine a range of solutions—will always  inform their choices and their contributions to their life’s work. YoungArts is proud to be part of the learning and connections vital to creating the next generation of America’s artists.