Orange County’s Artist of the Year program, which has recognized excellence among high school students in such fields as music, dance, theater, film and visual arts since 2014, is seeking financial support from the public to continue operating.
Arts Orange County, an independent, nonprofit arts council, will serve as the fiscal sponsor for the Artist of the Year program, said Richard Stein, president and CEO of the group. People can make tax-deductible donations to Artist of the Year through Arts Orange County.
“Arts Orange County is proud to serve as fiscal sponsor for Artist of the Year, a program that recognizes artistic excellence in junior and senior high school students across Orange County,” Stein said in a written statement. “In its role as an independent nonprofit arts council, ArtsOC is our community’s leading advocate and service provider for the arts and arts education. Helping amplify the voices and stories of young people is an important part of what we do. Whether it be visual or performing arts, the world of a student artist can be small. Artist of the Year increases a student’s circle of awareness, providing them with the sort of recognition that can inspire. Maybe it’s toward their next step as an artist. Perhaps it’s simply along their journey in life. ArtsOC is happy to be part of this important program.”
The Artist of the Year program began as an outgrowth of the Register’s Varsity Arts program, with the goal of giving high school artists the same recognition as is typically bestowed on high school athletes. The program became independent in 2018, but the Register has continued to co-sponsor the program and publishes coverage of nominees, semifinalists, finalists and the seven students selected each spring as Artists of the Year.
Students are nominated by teachers and arts instructors; those selected as semifinalists then perform before and are interviewed by panels of arts professionals and college faculty. The panels then choose the finalists and Artist of the Year in one of seven disciplines: dance, film/TV, theater, instrumental music, vocal music, fine arts and media arts. In the program’s first year, 113 students from 51 schools were nominated for Artist of the Year consideration. For the 2024 competition, the number of nominees grew to a record 892 from 85 schools, private instructors and arts organizations.
“I love watching the students blossom into artists as they progress through Artist of the Year,” said Heide Janssen, the program’s creator and director. “All of the nominees we encounter not only take great pride in being recognized as top artists from their school or studio, but that very recognition often propels them to start thinking differently about what they want to express through their artform and how they want to affect others with their work.”
Many past participants in the Artist of the Year program have gone on to pursue careers in the arts and the entertainment industry. For instance, Hannahlei Cabanilla, a dance semifinalist in 2017, went on to win season 15 of “So You Think You Can Dance” and also performed with Billie Eilish at Coachella and appeared in Taylor Swift’s music video for the song “ME!”
“This program is designed not only to celebrate and honor excellence, but for those students who are considering pursuing a career in the arts, it helps them to start crafting ways to talk coherently about their work and themselves as artists,” Janssen said. “This becomes invaluable as they start to prepare for college applications and auditions.”
Among those to experience the program’s benefits is Alyx Lee, who was named Artist of the Year for film/animation in 2018 when she was a senior at Yorba Linda High School. Lee later graduated from Chapman University with a degree in screen acting and is pursuing a career in acting and filmmaking.
“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,” she said last year. “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. … 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.”
The Artist of the Year program has benefited in recent years from a commitment by Chapman University College of Performing Arts to defray operating expenses. Chapman also hosts an on-campus event each spring to recognize Artists of the Year and finalists, with winners performing and discussing their artwork. Other help has come from UC Irvine’s Claire Trevor School of the Arts to provide awards to the top students.
However, the program currently has a shortfall of $12,500 for the 2024-25 academic year, Janssen said. Funds raised beyond that amount will be applied to prizes for winning artists and other program expenses, Janssen said.
Those wishing to donate to Artist of the Year may do so at tinyurl.com/bn2622rj
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