Two Mount St. Mary students get scholarships, will have their song performed on Broadway

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Two senior students at Mount St. Mary Academy have received a national award and will have a song they wrote performed on Broadway.

Maya Johnson and Isabella Nguyen have been selected as winners of the 2023-2024 Musical Theatre Songwriting Challenge by the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Alliance for Musical Theatre.

The pair have been awarded $2,500 scholarships by the National Music Publisher’s S.O.N.G.S. Foundation along with a trip to New York City to hear their song “Live Before Life’s Gone” by a full orchestra during a special Broadway concert.

The students have a broad background in performance. School officials said both are active in theatre arts and forensics programs and members of the National Thespian Society, and they also participate in the school’s choral ensemble and have been selected to the Arkansas Choral Directors Association All-Star State Choir multiple times.

Both students say they were surprised by the win.

“When we got the call that ‘Live Before Life’s Gone’ was selected as one of seven winning songs out of over 90 that were submitted, we were absolutely shocked – and still are,” they said in a joint statement. “We can’t wait for winners weekend and to work alongside professional composers, musicians and performers to bring our song to life and make connections that will hopefully become stepping stones to bigger things in the future.”

The students will travel to New York City this weekend with the six other winning songwriters to learn about process, technique and production while working with mentors and music directors to hone their orchestrations. The performance will take place at 7 p.m. on June 17 and will be available to watch live and on-demand on the National Endowment for the Arts website.

“Live Before Life’s Gone” is one song in a musical the pair wrote titled “Less Than Perfect.”

from KARK https://ift.tt/iWInpg3