Cleveland State hosting Young Americans Tour

A music tour that counts numerous stage and screen professionals among its alumni, will stop in Cleveland next week looking for performers.

The Young Americans National Music Outreach Tour will begin Thursday at Cleveland State Community College. After three days of rehearsals, the touring group and local participants will present a concert on Feb. 18 in the Cleveland Middle School gymnasium.

The goals of the Young Americans are to encourage music in schools, to train young people in performance and to strengthen character through these performances. Students participate in vocal ensembles, staging, choreography, developing performance attitudes, vocal techniques, dance, musical theater and sound techniques. Instrumentalists also are incorporated into the program, as well as singers and actors.

Participants will spend three days in intensive performance instruction. For the finale concert, the Young Americans will perform the first act, then participating students will join them for the second act.

“It is truly a life-changing experience,” said Karen Dale, associate professor of music at CSCC, “not only for older students who join the cast and tour internationally but for the shy child who feels confident in participating for the first time or the student who needs a place to belong and is able to find it through the arts.”

Through such workshops, the organization welcomes more than 100 new members annually to

FAMOUS ALUMNI

replace those who leave the group after they turn 25. There are about 250 current Young Americans; 150 of them go out on the road while the newest members spend their first year in training at the Young Americans College of Performing Arts in Southern California. The majority of participants are ages 5-18.

The cost to participate in the outreach tour is $47. Payment can be made at the Cleveland State Business Office in the Administration Building on campus. Operating hours are 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Monday-friday.

The cost to attend the concert, scheduled at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 18, is $10 adults, $8 for students 18 and younger.

For details, go to www. youngamericans.org. To register for the tour in Cleveland, go to www.clevelandstatecc.edu and click on Young Americans.