2018 Future Stages Festival Performance Group Biographies

Helzberg Hall

Crescendo Conservatory’s Crescendo in Motion

Crescendo in Motion is a pre-professional company of dedicated young dancers ages 10-18. These young athletes/artists train daily at Crescendo Conservatory in a variety of disciplines and bring entertaining, high quality performances to the Greater Kansas City community.

Harmony Project KC

Harmony Project KC, based on the campus of the Northeast Community Center, is an affiliate of the acclaimed Harmony Project Los Angeles, one of the most effective arts-based youth development programs in the nation tailored to low-income youth, recently winning the nation’s highest honor for an arts-based youth program by the President’s Committee on the Arts & Humanities. Since its launch in 2015, Harmony Project KC students frequently perform in their community, including side-by-side performances with members of the Kansas City Symphony, Future Stages 2017, and at the Kauffman Stadium for the Kansas City Royals.

Kansas City Boys Choir and Kansas City Girls Choir

The Kansas City Boys Choir consists of approximately 30 plus young men from diverse musical backgrounds in the age range of 9-19 years of age. The Kansas City Girls Choir consists of approximately 30 plus young women from diverse musical and cultural backgrounds in the age range of 8-18 years old. KCBC/KCGC provides a forum for developing and enhancing the mind to bridge communication gaps through music in the classical boys’/girls’ choir tradition. These young men and women represent both Missouri and Kansas metropolitan areas, and will spend a large amount of their time representing the Greater Kansas City area nationally. Our KCBC/KCGC participants complete concerts, which includes dramatizations, as well as traditional-sacred-contemporary music.

KC Institute of Chinese Dance and Language

Our modern dance group at the Kansas City Institute of Chinese Language and Culture was established in 1998. In less than a year, the team recruited 40 dancers. This dance group focuses on learning and performing Chinese folk dances, and the choreography embodies characteristics of the Chinese ethnic minorities. These cultural rich performances have had a positive impact on a wide range of audiences. These dancers who average less than 8 years old come to class with determined minds and execute the choreography with artistic grace. I want to give my deepest to gratitude to the Kauffman Art Center for hosting the Future Stages activities. My dancers are eager to board Kauffman’s stage and are now practicing new Chinese folk dances in the hopes that their dancing and cultural performances will continue to spark a youthful, promising, and refreshing sensation.

KC Youth Percussion Ensemble

The Kansas City Youth Percussion Ensemble (KCYPE) is made up of several performing groups, including large ensembles, small chamber ensem-bles, and mallet percussion orchestras. The ensemble features a wide variety of percussion literature composed and/or arranged specifically for percussion instruments. Groups are available for middle school students, high school students, and young professionals. Auditions in May determine the performing groups appropriate for each student for the following season.Under new direction, the KCYPE is aiming to become a leading organization of youth and young professional education in the Mid-West. Working with local big name performers and professors, as well as up and coming vinternational stars the KCYPE seeks to make the idea of percussion more accessible and entertaining to the general public.

Lyric Opera: LyriKids

The Lyrikids are representatives from the Lyric Op-era of Kansas City’s mainstage Children’s Choruses and camps. They help prepare the productions that tour to area schools with the Lyric Opera Express. Today they’d like to present excerpts from one of the productions currently on tour, NEVER LOST A PASSENGER: The Story of Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. Also featured will be singers in the Ginger Frost High School Honors Artists program. Here to tell you more is LaTeesha Jackson and Ashley Beth Burnett, Education Assistants at the Lyric Opera.

Metropolitan Conservatory

The Metropolitan Conservatory Orchestra is comprised of motivated musicians, ages 7 through 18 + a handful of college ages alumni. Our players drive from Blue Springs, Kansas City, Olathe, Overland Park, Gardner, Shawnee, Lawrence, and Topeka to make music together every Sunday. Students are divided into 4 age/experience level based classes and perform both separately and together. This small ensemble setting fosters teamwork and gives each student a unique opportunity to shine. The Orchestra explores a wide variety of classical, contemporary, and popular repertoire. Our kids especially love collaborating on new arrangements of popular music. By performance day, each piece is reflects the creative contributions of our individual students and the energy and teamwork of the group as a whole.

Ottawa Suzuki Strings

The Ottawa Suzuki Strings is an ensemble of violinists, violists, and cellists who range in age from 2 years old to 18. The program was founded in 1966 by director Alice Joy Lewis, and students’ music study is based on the Talent Education approach of Dr. Shinichi Suzuki, whose core belief was that every child can learn. Students receive their music education, including private lessons, fiddling, music theory, and ensemble classes, at the Carnegie Cultural Center in Ottawa, Kansas. The group has toured in the US and has performed at the United Nations in New York City. The Ottawa Suzuki Strings were featured in July 2000, on the PBS Jim Lehrer News Hour in “A Joyful Noise,” an essay by Jim Fisher. The Ottawa Suzuki Strings have recorded four CDs. The Ottawa Suzuki Strings have performed each year of the Future Stages Festival.

The Smithville Ringleaders

The Smithville Ringleaders are a group of 28 second graders who stay after twice a week to participate in a handbell choir. This handbell choir emphasizes teamwork, dedication, and making beautiful music. Under the direction of Mr. Justin Espey, the Smithville Ringleaders are a respected ensemble in the community playing at differentschools, retirement communities, and various town events to show that being a musician has no age requirement. We hope you enjoy the variety of songs from different backgrounds and look forward to putting on an amazing experience for you.