 Please support American Voices' YES Academies in Lebanon and Iraq as well as our Syrian students on scholarship at St. Louis University
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Upcoming Events
August 1-12: YES Academy ASEAN Broadway, Songwriting and Hip Hop in Jakarta, Indonesia with youth from 9 Southeast Asian nations
August 9-20:
YES Academy Lebanon Orchestra, Piano, Guitar, Jazz and Composition in Beirut, Lebanon with youth from Syria, Lebanon, Tunisia, Egypt, and Jordan
August 21-31:
YES Academy Iraq Orchestra, Piano, Guitar, Jazz and Composition in Erbil, Iraq with youth from Iraq
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Dear Friends,
The spring flew by, and we have lots of news to share with you! We would like to start by thanking you for your continued support of our mission.
We are now into our 23rd year of cultural diplomacy and youth engagement in nations emerging from conflict or isolation.
We are currently preparing for our Summer YES Academies which will take place in Jakarta, Beirut, and Erbil. To learn more please visit our website.
I hope you will see the impact our programs are having, particularly for underserved youth in nations emerging from isolation or conflict such as Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. In 2015, we saw our programs in Iraq come full circle: our students from 2007, now trained teachers through our programs, are sending their young students to our YES Academy Iraq program
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If you like what you see and would like to continue to watch our programs thrive, I encourage you to visit our Donate page. Every contribution will help use reach over 350 youth across Asia and the Middle East this summer.
Thank you for your support,
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John Ferguson
Executive Director
American Voices |
Generosity - Indiegogo Campaign to benefit YES Academy Lebanon, YES Academy Eribil, and American Voices Scholarship Students
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| Students of the YES Academy Lebanon |
Every day in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, some of the world's most challenged and fragile countries, aspiring young musicians, dancers, and actors dream of a future in the arts. And every day, threats, insurgencies and terrorist organizations across the Middle East
try to
extinguish those dreams.
Each summer since 2007, American Voices has brought seasoned artist-teachers of strings, orchestra, composition, piano, guitar, jazz and chamber music, to
create oases
of creativity,
training
and inspiration for these talented and motivated young performing artists.
Please help us rebuild the cultural sectors of some of the most
fragile
nations in the Middle East, and help the next generation of performing artists reach their potential and change the world.
The performing arts can be a unique and uniting force in regions overwhelmed by violence. American Voices focuses on nations emerging from conflict and isolation enabling youth to rise above the impediment of an education interrupted by war.
American Voices asks you for your generous support of these critical programs that empower young artists in fragile nations to rise above their circumstances, and create essential change. In August 2016, we will return to Iraq and Lebanon with outreach to youth from Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Tunisia, with two Youth Excellence on Stage (YES)
Academy
and American Festival programs. In addition, we will support two of the most gifted students as they complete their education here at St. Louis University in the United States.
A generous donor has already agreed to match all contributions up to $4,000. Please help us achieve this goal.
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Scholarship Student Spotlight: Karam
Karam, American Voices' spring scholarship student arrived in January to study at St. Louis University. We caught up with him to ask him about his first semester, and life in Saint Louis. "SLU is a great campus, the people are open and friendly, and the classes are difficult, but I'm learning a lot." As a self-taught pianist (he began at 23 watching videos on YouTube), Karam's life changed when he attended the YES Academy Lebanon where he studied piano with John Ferguson, and soon afterwards, American Voices provided a scholarship for him to leave Syria to study at SLU. "Although I still have stress about the situation my family is in, I can now play the piano without hearing bombs and gunshots. I am so inspired by the other students: I had never observed students where music is their major." Karam is exploring new repertoire and, of course, perfecting his technique. "I want to play the hard pieces - Rachmaninov, Chopin, Mendelssohn - but the other pieces are also stretching my skills and knowledge." With these wonderful opportunities, the young student has high aspirations, which probably won't take him long to reach.
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