Three UNCSA students are YoungArts winners

Three UNCSA students are winners in the YoungArts Competition, which honors the nation’s most accomplished young artists in the visual, literary, design and performing arts.

Tenor Quinn Albinus, a high school senior from Concord, is a finalist in the classical voice category. He studies with Glenn Siebert in the School of Music.

Hami Trinh, a high school senior in the Visual Arts Program, won a merit award for photography. She is from Sanford.

Alexis Ward, a college freshman and 2020 high school graduate of the School of Music, won a merit award as a singer/songwriter in the voice category. From Chapel Hill, she studies guitar performance with Joseph Percoraro.

As a finalist, Albinus was eligible to participate in January in National YoungArts Week, an intensive program of classes and workshops with internationally recognized leaders in their fields.

“YoungArts Week was an amazing experience,” Albinus said. “I met so many incredibly talented artists who inspire me to keep creating.”

He will also be nominated as a Presidential Scholar in the Arts, one of the nation’s highest honors for high school students. The candidate applications will be reviewed by the White House Commission on Presidential Scholars, which will ultimately select 20 high school seniors who exemplify academic and artistic accomplishments, demonstrated leadership, community service and outreach initiatives, and overall creativity.

YoungArts’ signature program is an application-based competition for emerging artists ages 15-18 or in grades 10-12. Selected through a blind adjudication process conducted by an independent panel of highly accomplished artists, YoungArts winners receive financial awards and creative and professional development experiences working with renowned guest artists. Joining a 20,000-strong alumni community, YoungArts award winners form a rich network of peers that provides support and opportunities throughout artists’ careers.

YoungArts alumni who have gone on to become leaders in their fields include choreographers Camille A. Brown, a UNCSA Dance alumna, and Desmond Richardson, speaker at the UNCSA 2019 high school commencement; actresses Viola Davis, Anna Gunn, Zuzanna Szadkowski and Kerry Washington; Broadway stars Raúl Esparza, Billy Porter, Andrew Rannells and Tony Yazbeck; recording artists Josh Groban, Judith Hill and Chris Young; Metropolitan Opera star Eric Owens; musicians Terence Blanchard, Gerald Clayton and Jennifer Koh; visual artists Daniel Arsham and Hernan Bas; internationally acclaimed multimedia artist Doug Aitken; television writer, producer, and director Jenji Kohan; New York Times best-selling author Sam Lipsyte; and Academy Award-winning filmmaker Doug Blush.

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