MTNA partners with ARTS competition. (Association News).

A partnership between MTNA and the Arts Recognition and Talent Search (ARTS) will give some MTNA state performance competition winners an opportunity to be named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts.

Under the agreement, ARTS, a program of the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts (NFAA), will allow students who win an MTNA state competition as a high school junior (eleventh grade) the opportunity to enter the ARTS competition during their senior year with automatic inclusion in the Intermediate level of ARTS judging. Allowing a student to enter the competition at this level ensures that the national panel of judges will review the student's audition material.

"The partnership with NFAA recognizes the exceptional artistic skills of MTNA competition winners," notes MTNA Executive Director Gary L. Ingle. "Our winners are an elite group of student performers. I am confident the MTNA competition winners who enter will be the most capable entrants in this outstanding program."

Each year, more than 1,500 ARTS applications are received in the instrumental music and voice categories. Approximately 300 of these entrants are selected for the Intermediate level. A nationally recognized panel of professional artists and university educators then select up to 125 students to travel to Miami in January of their senior year to participate in ARTS Week, an intensive week-long experience of master classes, showcase performances, exhibitions, interdisciplinary activities and interviews as well as live auditions. National finalists are selected in nine disciplines, including voice (classical or popular), jazz music (including jazz vocalists) and instrumental music.

At the conclusion of ARTS Week, fifty of the national finalists are nominated to the White House Commission on Presidential Scholars for the honor of also being named a U.S. Presidential Scholar in the Arts. The Commission selects twenty exclusively from the ARTS nominees for this honor, and the students travel to Washington, D.C. in June following their graduations for National Recognition Week. While in Washington, they are featured in a performance at the Kennedy Center. They also receive the Presidential Medallion from the President at a White House ceremony.

Students in the ARTS program are only judged against a standard of excellence for their artistic discipline and age group. Students are never judged against each other, and the judges are allowed to place as many students as appropriate in each of the five levels of excellence. Each student who attends ARTS Week is guaranteed a cash grant scholarship award of $500-$3,000 depending upon his or her level of excellence. Beginning with ARTS 2004, the judges in each of the nine ARTS disciplines will be awarding a single $10,000 ARTS Gold award to a student of extraordinary talent and potential.

Additionally, students selected as Honorable Mention award winners receive a $100 cash award and a certificate of recognition, but are not invited to Miami. An unlimited number of students are selected as Merit Award winners, which carry recognition, but no cash award.

For additional information go to the ARTS website at www.nfaa.org.