NOCCA Breaks Records With Class of 2013
Students Completing Studies At Arts Conservatory Have Received Largest Sum Of Scholarship Offers In School History
New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) Class of 2013 is a special one. The class of 123 students from across southeastern Louisiana has received over $14.5 million dollars in scholarship offers from the most prestigious colleges and art conservatories in the country. This figure averages over $118,000 per student, exclusive of TOPS awards. This year, NOCCA has the highest per capita and total scholarship awards in NOCCA’s history.
Some incredible student highlights include:
- Angelique Montes (pictured right) New Orleans-70131, Orleans Parish, NOCCA Classical Instrumental student will be attending Oberlin Conservatory of Music on scholarship continuing her studies on the cello. Angelique was selected as a member of the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America and will be touring the world this summer.
- Miles Berry (pictured left)Mandeville-70448, St. Tammany Parish, NOCCA Jazz student, is part of the prestigious 2013 Thelonious Monk National Performing Arts High School All-Star Jazz Sextet as saxophonist and sole member from Louisiana. He plans on attending The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York. Miles has also received the national acclaim as the 2013 recipient of the ASCAP Foundation Louis Prima Award.
- Sandy Osgood (pictured right) Gretna-70054, Plaquemines Parish, Belle Chase High and NOOCA Culinary Arts senior plans to fulfill his dream of becoming a chef by attending Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island on scholarship. Sandy began honing his culinary training with NOCCA over four years ago in a summer program.
- Rickey Watson Jr. (pictured left) LaPlace-70068, St. John the Baptist Parish, a NOCCA Drama student who attends East St. John High School plans on continuing his studies in acting at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Rickey has been very active at his academic school, including his selection as a Wildcat Top 10.
- Creative Writing student Leigh Vila (pictured right), Metairie-70002, Jefferson Parish, received the level of Artistry in her NOCCA studies as well as maintaining a rigorous academic studies at Haynes Academy of Advanced Studies. Leigh is a National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Competition finalist and has been accepted to Yale University where she will be attending in the fall. As an artist, she has received several national awards from the prestigious Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and was recognized at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
- Emmanuel Chastain (pictured left) Independence-70443, Tangipahoa Parish, faced many challenges with transportation to and from NOCCA coming from Independence, Louisiana each day. He was still able to achieve his goal of concluding his Media Arts: Filmmaking & Digital Recording studies at NOCCA. Now, he plans to continue work on his own music and produce. He will be enrolling at Southeastern Louisiana University.
- Malerie Dempster (pictured right) Luling-70070, St. Charles Parish, has been dancing since she was a toddler. She has been accepted to the prestigious arts conservatory of The Ailey School/Fordham University. She is one of only forty students nationally accepted into this professional dance university program. She plans to receive her Bachelors of Fine Arts from Fordham and dance in Ailey’s company.
“Every year, NOCCA has an exceptional group of seniors that go out into the world and lead in the creative and cultural economies,” stated NOCCA President|CEO Kyle Wedberg. “But this class has shown themselves to be singular. We have more national merit citations, more valedictorians and salutatorians, and more scholarship awarded dollars per capita to this class than any previous year. This class will not only make great art, but they will make important contributions to this city, region, state, nation and the world as they help us better see the elements of ourselves, our collective selves, and our path forward through their work. There are great things to come from the NOCCA Class of 2013.”