The
Young Americans is a non-profit, tax exempt, educational
institution founded in 1962. We were the first choir to
move to the music we sang. We created the entire "show
choir" movement by influencing the teachers of our
nations when we performed on all of the leading television
shows of the 60's and 70's.
Bing
Crosby was the first to have The Young Americans on his
NBC-TV special television shows. What followed was a success
story on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show and Ed Sullivan's
CBS-TV show out of New York City (We were on that show six
times.) Red Skelton had us perform "Singing in the
Rain" CBS television city in Holly-wood. They flooded
the entire studio with rain for us.
Julie
Andrews at ABC-TV, Dean Martin at NBC, Andy Williams, Jimmy
Durante, George Burns and many others. Judy Garland performed
a full-length concert with us at the Greek Theatre in Los
Angeles. In other years, at that same theatre, we performed
one year with Johnny Mathis and another year with Henry
Mancini.
We
had fun with most of the stars of the 60's and 70's: Fred
Astaire, Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, and the Summer replacement
series on CBS with the composer and writer of The Music
Man and The Unsinkable Molly Brown the talented Meredith
Willson, sponsored by Texaco.
It
was in the 60's that we were able to help solve some of
our nation's problems that occurred between our youth and
the "establishment." The Young Americans bridged
"the generation gap" and truly helped to bring
clarity to the youthful generation of the time.
The
70's and 80's saw us travel to the Pacific rim countries
of Japan, Okinawa, Thailand, The Philippines, Singapore,
Hong Kong, Australia, and Korea. Three summers in a row
we performed on a special stage built beside the Mediterranean
Sea in the French Riviera (Wow, those French girls got a
lot of our young men's attention!).
Ten
National Tours for Columbia Artists (Community Concert Association
Series) included The Young Americans in Concert I, II, III,
IV, V. The Gershwin Special, To Richard Rogers With Love,
and our own National Touring Companies of Oklahoma! , The
Music Man, and West Side Story.
They
won the Academy Award (Oscar) for our full-length documentary
for Columbia Motion Pictures and performed in the Academy
Awards show the following year singing the winning song
"Born Free." We recorded five major albums released
by such companies as Victor and ABC Records, and produced
our own hour long TV special for ABC television, sponsored
by Corning Glass.
We
remember performances in the finest theatres and arena's
throughout this nation and the world. Madison Square Gardens
in NYC, Hollywood Bowl in LA, the Cow Palace in San Francisco,
Victory Place in Canada, and premiere performances on the
big stages in Disneyland and Disney World, at the LA Coliseum,
McArthur Place in Chicago and packaged theatrical performances
for Chevrolet and IBM all across this nation. Pepsi-Cola,
Coca Cola, Trans-American Insurance, Amway, and countless
corporate functions have taken us to locales from Hawaii
to Florida, New York to Los Angeles, Detroit to Denver.
The
Young Americans performed at the foot of the Washington
Monument in Washington, D.C., on a special stage that was
built just for us during the entire Summer of our nation's
Bicentennial Celebrations in 1976. Every night that summer
we performed for over 5000 people. We have sung separately
for 6 of our nation's Presidents and performed for Kings
and Princesses all across the world.
Beginning
in 1993, we have concentrated much of our efforts founding
the International Music Outreach Tours and have gone into
our nation's schools to work directly with our nation's
youth. (See our IMOT page).
We
are influencing student's ability to look at themselves,
to build self-esteem and self worth and to respect others
who have different beliefs. We don't lecture or preach or
tell people how to live.
The
Young Americans strengthen music in our nation's schools.
Our Founder and Director Milton C. Anderson expressed all
our feelings when he said, "It is unacceptable that
music has been disappearing from our school's curriculum.
OUR YOUTH NEEDS TO SING!"
In
Summary, The Young Americans are a group of 30 young, talented
singer dancers. Performers that retain humanity and provide
a sense of reality to their audiences. The Young Americans
sense of honesty allows them to enter an inner-city school
and be accepted by their peers, or to perform and be accepted
equally by Royalty and Heads of State. Each performance
group of 30 is taken from the overall large group of 200
that studies and rehearses at our own school - California
Pacific College of the Performing Arts, in Southern California.
We rehearse on weekends, Saturday 8AM to 6PM, Sunday 1PM
to 10PM.