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2025 National YoungArts Week. Photo by Jason Koerner.

YoungArts Community Spotlight: February 2025

By YoungArts | February 21, 2025
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Each month, the YoungArts Community Spotlight highlights upcoming events, projects and press from YoungArts past winners, guest artists and panelists.

In the News

  • Jon Batiste (2005 Jazz) won two Grammy Awards for Best Song Written for Visual Media for “It Never Went Away” (From American Symphony) and Best Music Film for American Symphony
  • Timothée Chalamet (2013 Theater) interviewed on 60 Minutes
  • Pascal Le Boeuf (2004 Classical Music, Jazz) won a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition for Strands, composed with Akropolis Reed Quintet and Christian Euman
  • Shamel Pitts (2003 Dance) interviewed by Fjord Review
  • Hunter Schafer (2017 Design) appeared as a guest judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race
  • Conrad Tao (2011 Classical Music & U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts) highlighted in Northwest Asian Weekly

Kudos

  • Joseph Block (2017 Jazz) released new album, Love Shadows
  • Juan José Cielo (2015 Visual Arts) awarded a MacDowell Fellowship
  • Emily Drennan (1998 Voice & U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts) winner of “Best Choral Music” for the World Entertainment Awards for album, Echoes of Grace: Choral Music of Patti Drennan
  • Jay Julio (2016 Classical Music) recorded viola on the eponymous work by foundational Filipino composer Nicanor Abelardo on new album, Panoramas
  • Lindsay Liebro (2022 Voice) released new single, “Victim Card”
  • Kalissa Persaud (2019 Theater) and Michael Silberblatt (2010 Theater & U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts) featured in Super Bowl commercials for Ritz and Verizon
  • James Allister Sprang (2008 Visual Arts) awarded residency at Headlands Center for the Arts
  • Jack Walker-Pearson (2002 Theater & U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts) published first book, A Child Of Many: The Coming of Passing Times

On the Calendar

  • Jabu Graybeal (2018, 2019 Dance) on tour with Postmodern Jukebox in Australia and New Zealand through February
  • Ariel Horowitz (2014 Classical Music) presents “Hearth” at Joe’s Pub in New York City on March 14
  • Samora Pinderhughes (2009, 2010 Jazz) presenting The Baldwin Essays: As Much Truth as One Can Bear at The Apollo Stages at The Victoria in New York on February 22
  • Sawyer Rabin (2023 Voice & U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts) Phone Tag release show in Los Angeles on February 27
  • Coralina Rodriguez Meyer (2000 Visual Arts) Baxter St. exhibition opening in New York City on March 5, on view through April 17
  • Jessica Shand (2015, 2016, 2017 Classical Music) releasing an album for flutes and electronics, Transmutations, on February 21
  • Jan Vargas Nedvetsky (2024 Classical Music), winner of 2025 DePaul National Concerto Competition, performing in Chicago in March

Share Your News

If you are a YoungArts past winner, guest artist or panelist, fill out this form to be included in an upcoming spotlight.

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