Cruising From Stockholm

Featured on Crystal Cruises’ June 30 sailing from Stockholm.

Always striving to create special attractions for its cultured audience, Crystal Cruises is partnering with the Music Center – Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County to showcase emerging musical stars during select European itineraries this summer and fall. Beginning this summer, Crystal’s new Emerging Artists Experiences of Discovery cruises will boast performances by Grand Prize Finalists of the center’s coveted Spotlight Awards.

For more than 20 years, the Music Center has been a leader in fostering and mentoring young artists. The Music Center Spotlight Awards ranks among the nation’s most acclaimed performing and visual arts education programs for teens, awarding over $100,000 in scholarships annually. More than 2,000 high school students audition each year in ballet, non-classical dance, classical voice, non-classical voice, classical instrumental, and jazz instrumental before professional judges. Students receive feedback preparing them for careers in the performing arts and finalists perform at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Many alumni have joined or performed with professional companies, including the Metropolitan Opera, American Ballet Theatre, The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, New York Philharmonic and even American Idol. In fact, Adam Lambert, this year’s American Idol runner-up, is a past winner of the Spotlight Award.

For each Emerging Artists cruise, Spotlight Awards Director Jeri Gaile has personally selected three recent alumni, most of whom are still teenagers. The first Spotlight cruise is June 30 on the Crystal Symphony from Stockholm to Copenhagen, with performances by a jazz bassist, a vocalist and a tap dancer.