Program needs to raise $12,500 to continue this season.
The upcoming season of the Artist of the Year – an annual high school arts awards program spearheaded by The Orange County Register – is in jeopardy of not happening this year. While some funding has been secured, there isn’t enough to keep it going. This program needs to raise $12,500 by Nov. 15 or else it will be canceled for the upcoming season.
Students nominated for Artist of the Year represent the top arts students in Orange County. Teachers nominate juniors and seniors who are not only talented, but who also approach their work with artistic vision, a sense of purpose, demonstrated growth as an artist, and a desire to impact those around them through their art.
Last season, close to 900 students were nominated, representing 86 schools and arts organizations. At the end of each season, seven students are identified as Artists of the Year, each representing the disciplines of theater, dance, instrumental music, vocal music, film and TV, media arts and fine arts.
The Birth of Artist of the Year
In 2013, The Orange County Register was in the midst of a journalism experiment. The new owners were doubling down on content creation and were looking for ways to attract new readers.
Enter Varsity Arts. I was hired to start a new section of the paper that highlighted the work of high school arts students. According to Jeff Miller, the features editor at the Register, “The core idea behind this effort was to celebrate achievement and participation in the arts by students and give high school performers and artists the same recognition that high school athletes have long enjoyed.”
For almost five years (until the tides of ownership shifted), Varsity Arts published weekly stories about the arts in high schools. Part of that coverage was the announcement of the annual Artist of the Year honors, developed as a companion to the paper's long-standing Athlete of the Year honors.
Even though the Register’s Varsity Arts coverage has been shuttered, the Artist of the Year program has survived thanks to donors and sponsors who have stepped up over the years, including Orange County Music and Dance, Chapman University, Laguna College of Art + Design, UC Irvine and the Orange County Department of Education.
Even though I am now the managing editor at Culture OC, I continue to spearhead Artist of the Year as a passion project. Yes, this is a Register program, and yes, on some days, they are our competition. But when it comes to supporting student artists and honoring artistic excellence in our schools, does it really matter who is taking the lead? The mission of Culture OC seeks to “engage with a diverse range of Orange County’s artistic and cultural communities at every level” and celebrating these student artists certainly meets our mission.
From left, Matthew Davies Morris, Alexandra “Alyx” Lee, Kayla Briët, Hannahlei Cabanilla and Daniel Zolghadri, are previous seminfinalists and winners of Artist of the Year.
Photos courtesy of The Orange County Register/Leonard Ortiz and Lauren Au
Supporting and Honoring the Next Generation
For me, the most exciting part of this program is watching students blossom into artists as a result of their participation. The process is not only designed to honor them, but also to help them prepare for college auditions and the professional arts world.
Many students start off not sure if the arts are their path, or wondering if they are good enough. Often they are surprised that their teacher picked them to represent their school. This nomination is often the boost they need to become more confident in their art form and to start thinking critically about their place in the world of the arts. Theater semifinalist Matthew Davies-Morris (2016 and 2017) has said, “The Artist of the Year program was my first experience with a more professional audition setting. It connected me with fantastic and talented people and helped give me confidence as I began stepping into a world after high school.”
Alexandra “Alyx” Lee, from Yorba Linda High School (the 2018 Film/Animation Artist of the Year) recently shared that “when I was in high school, going into a career in the arts felt like this crazy pipe dream, something that my younger self would always dream about but never do. So, to have this amazing organization see your work and stand behind you and say, ‘I see your potential’ is life changing to any young artist .... It was so hard to see a life in film/acting as even being possible, because growing up there weren’t a lot of people who looked like me on screen. But years later, this is one of those moments in my life that I look back at all the time and can confidently say had changed my future forever." If you go to Lee’s imdb.com page, you’ll see her pride in the first words of her bio: “Orange County Register's Artist of the Year, Alyx Lee ….”
And for some students, the award is the launch pad for starting their professional career. Kayla Briët, our first Artist of the Year in film (2014), became a TED fellow and has had her work exhibited by the Smithsonian Institute, MoMA, Adobe, National Geographic, PBS, and over 50 international film and music festivals. Hannahlei Cabanilla, a dance semifinalist from 2017, was the season 15 winner of “So You Think You Can Dance.” Daniel Zolghadri, the 2017 Artist of the Year in theater, has become a working film actor, appearing in Steven Spielberg’s “Ready Player One,” HBO’s “Fahrenheit 451” and the upcoming movie “Y2K.”
If you would like to see the Artist of the Year program continue, click on this link: https://bit.ly/4ekUNMv
Donations will be made to Arts Orange County on behalf of Artist of the Year.
If you are interesting in advertising sponsorship for Artist of the Year, send and email to ocartistoftheyear@aoy.scng.com.
Pages from the special section on Apr. 24 in The Orange County Register announcing the 2024 Artists of the Year. Images courtesy of The Orange County Register
