Since 2018, The American Pops Orchestra has hosted the “NextGen: Finding the Voices of Tomorrow” Vocal Competition to discover some of the best collegiate talent in the country and assist them on their path to success. For the first time, we gave our audience the opportunity to observe behind-the-scenes and see what all goes into preparing for the competition.
For this Performance Masterclass, each participant was previously assigned a pre-1970 American popular song, with music ranging from Sarah Vaughn, to Bobby Short, to Joni Mitchell. They have were tasked with learning and recording a 16-32 bar cut of their assigned song, which was then shared live during the masterclass. Viewers were able to watch live as participants present their songs and receive feedback on their performances.