E-News

 Wal-Mart Donates $30,000 to Renaissance Theatre Academy

WOR RADIO 710 ANNOUNCES westchester STUDENTs

nicole brown & cheyenne elliott

FINALISTs IN wOR’S SHINING STAR TALENT SEARCH 

six finalists compete for great prizes & $10,000 for their school!

(New York, New York – June 7, 2007) – WOR Radio announced today that Nicole Browne, a senior at New Rochelle High School, and Cheyenne Elliott, a 7^th grader at Hommocks Middle School in Larchmont, are among the six finalists in WOR’s Shining Star Talent Search!  On Monday June 11, the six finalists’ songs will be played on The WOR Morning Show with Joe Bartlett and Donna Hanover (5am-9am).  Listeners will be able to call in to vote for their favorite beginning Monday June 11 at 7:30am through Wednesday, June 13 at 4pm.  Each student is in the running to win a grand prize of $2,500 and a professional recording session for themselves and $10,000 for their school.  The 1^st runner-up wins $1,500, and the 2^nd runner-up wins $750.  The top three finalists will each sing live in front of thousands of attendees at WOR’s Get Healthy Expo on June 16^th. 

WOR Radio 710 HD has been searching for upcoming talent at New York tri-state schools. Nicole, who sang an a cappella version of Ella Fitzgerald’s classic Lullaby of Birdland, and Cheyenne, who sang Corrine Bailey Rae’s Put Your Records On, were among the twenty-five students selected out of an enormous number of entries to compete live in front of their family and friends at WOR’s Shining Star Sing-Off at the Marriott Financial Center in Lower Manhattan on June 2^nd.

The finalists were chosen by a panel of entertainment industry professionals comprised of legendary disc jockey “Cousin Brucie" Morrow; WOR latenight host and legendary Top-40 disc jockey Joey Reynolds; Kamen Entertainment Group’s Marina Kamen, who is a giving a professional recording session to the winning student; and 4th Season American Idol favorite, Anthony Fedorov, who is currently starring Off-Broadway in THE FANTASTICKS and who will perform live at WOR’s Get Healthy Expo on June 16^th at 10:45am.

The other finalists are Travis Finlay a 7^th grader at Baldwin Middle School and Blair Goldberg a senior at Nassau BOCES Cultural Arts Center on Long Island; Zewdy Awalom, a junior at Union High School in Union, New Jersey; and Manhattan resident, Samantha Margulies a senior at the Bronx High School of Science.

 WOR’s Shining Star Talent Search benefits tri-state area schools and students by supporting arts curriculums and by providing cash prizes to winning students and to the winning school.  An enormous number of students in grades 7-12 from across the WOR listening area sang a song of their choice and submitted their recording to WOR.  After an intense internal judging process, 25 of the tri-state area’s most talented students competed live at WOR’s Shining Star Sing-Off at the Marriott Financial Center in Lower Manhattan on Saturday, June 2^nd.

 Throughout the competition, students have been interviewed and their entries played on The WOR Morning Show with Joe Bartlett and Donna Hanover.  After the June 2nd Sing-Off, the top 6 six finalists’ entries will be aired on WOR and voted on by WOR listeners.  The winner and first and second runners-up will perform before thousands of attendees at WOR’s Get Healthy Expo, a day-long entertaining and informative event to be held at the New Jersey Convention and Exposition Center on June 16th.  The cash prizes to students are as follows: Third place ($750), Second place ($1,500), and the Shining Star Winner gets $2,500 as well as a professional recording session with Kamen Entertainment Group NYC.  The school attended by the winning student wins $10,000!

 “Children living in New York City grow up in a rich and diverse musical environment, and we have made great efforts to cultivate our students' musical gifts,” said Sharon Dunn, Senior Instructional Manager for Arts Education at the New York City Department of Education.  “We are delighted that this program offers New York City schoolchildren an opportunity to showcase their creativity and talent.”

 “The ‘Shining Star Talent Search’ provides students with an opportunity to showcase their artistic talents and creativity,” said New Jersey Commissioner of Education Lucille E. Davy.

 WOR Radio has a long tradition of supporting education and giving back to the communities we serve.  Pop icon, Broadway performer, and original “Shining Star” winner Deborah Gibson attributes WOR with helping to get her career started when she won a WOR songwriting competition.  Previous winners of WOR’s Shining Star Talent Search were both from New Jersey high schools - Alexandra Hausner from Fair Lawn High School and Jonathan Schwartz from Cranford High School.  Both students sang live in front of thousands of people at WOR’s Celebrate America: A Salute to Broadway events in 2005 and 2006.  Regarding her live performance at Celebrate America 2005, Alexandra Hausner was quoted in New Jersey’s Bergen Record as stating, “The second I stepped out there you could just feel the crowd and the rush…anything that I’ve ever imagined or dreamed of happened there.”

 This year’s Shining Star Talent Search is made possible by J&R Music and Computer World and Philips.  For more information, visit www.wor710.com.

25 Years of Bluegrass at the Emelin

EMELIN BLUEGRASS DAY: 

Celebrate 25 years of Bluegrass programming with
PINE MOUNTAIN RAILROAD

 (image attached)
Friday, October 6, 8PM, $32

    Celebrate 25 years of Bluegrass programming on "Emelin Bluegrass Day" with one of music's most entertaining bands. The California Bluegrass Association named Pine Mountain Railroad as its 2004 Emerging Artist of the Year. Their song, "Beyond the Rain," from their latest album, Heartache and Hope, has hit the Bluegrass Unlimited Magazine's top 30's Bluegrass chart and was the number 1 song on powergrassradio.com.

Jacob Burns Film Center
www.burnsfilmcenter.org