The Young Americans Are Changing the Sound of Music Education

Music Workshops have an International Impact on Students, Schools, Teachers and Corporate Culture

LOS ANGELES, March 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The "international language" of music doesn't just talk; on a global music advocacy movement, The Young Americans use it to walk into lives in surprising ways. They use music as a tool to inspire, comfort, strengthen and teach.  "Our mission is clear; to help keep music alive in schools," says Milton C. Anderson, CEO and founder of the oldest non-profit youth music organization in the world.

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One-time schoolteacher, CBS music supervisor, and composer, Anderson founded The Young Americans in 1962 to introduce the world to Southern California's most talented high school students. Today, The Young Americans are simultaneously performers and teachers bringing workshops to schools all over the world, as well as prisons, homeless shelters and businesses.

The touring casts of 46 members, each aged 18 to 24 move from city to city and country to country, staying at the homes of hospitable local citizens. At each tour stop, they teach three-day music performance workshops that include classes in singing, dancing, and theater. On the final day, a spectacular two-hour show is produced where the participants perform right alongside The Young Americans in front of parents, families, teachers, peers and community members.

Again and again, teachers are amazed at the way The Young Americans inspire their students. "Some of the students who get solos are kids that weren't even in the school choir or drama program," said Anderson's wife, Susan, who has booked the tours for 18 years. "The choir teacher is saying, 'Where have you been?'"

The Andersons have seen the organization grow into a global resource not just for schools in the US, Canada, Japan, Britain, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Ukraine, The Netherlands and Russia, but also as a teaching model for the German Division of PricewaterhouseCoopers. This international company invited The Young Americans to hold a workshop for six of its departments, and according to Artistic Director Bill Brawley, "They told us that the workshops changed the entire communications culture of their organization and literally opened doors."

Since then, PricewaterhouseCoopers has sponsored over 35 Young Americans' workshops for troubled schools in Germany, which are continually met with huge success.

"The Young Americans have a profound effect on the entire community." Mr. Anderson said. "Kids discover things in themselves they never knew they had. From music and collaborative performance you learn teamwork, a sense of caring, and how it's possible to accomplish a thing of beauty with a group of people."

Over the years, The Young Americans have performed for Presidents and heads of state, won an Academy Award (Oscar), been on national TV and appeared live before a worldwide audience of millions. Among its 3,500 alumni are professionals on Broadway, in motion pictures, television, radio, recording industry as well as countless careers as music directors, teachers and every other industry imaginable.

As The Young Americans conduct workshops, they welcome over 100 new members annually to 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 Young Americans is a 501(c)-(3) non-profit, educational organization that is not politically or religiously affiliated. For more information about The Young Americans please visit www.youngamericans.org

Contact: Brooke Robinson, Publicist 615.485.7705 [email protected]

SOURCE The Young Americans