“Baby get moving / Why keep your feeble hopes alive? / What are you proving? / You’ve got the dream but not the drive.” So sang Michael Gibson, bringing down the house as Teen Angel [pictured below] in McHenry High School’s production of “Grease,” during the spring of 2001. I was a freshman in the ensemble, and like Gibson, I loathed the musical, but that hardly mattered. We were there because the arts were everything to us. With its Broadway influences, the new renaissance of Disney had shown us, at a young age, how exhilarating a story can be when it is put to song. Gibson went on to write his own musicals, including one (entitled “Nine Lives”) that ended up being performed at the Chicago Musical Theatre Festival. Yet the main role of Gibson’s adult life has been his teaching position at Curie Metropolitan High School on Chicago’s South Side. That’s where he founded Musicality, an after school singing group that became semifinalists on NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” last year. Needless to say, there’s no doubt Gibson has both the dream and the drive.

Last month, Gibson and I met up for the first time in 16 years and had an in-depth conversation about Musicality’s origins, their experience on reality TV and their plans for the future.

How did your experience in high school theatre form your own approach to working with teens and youth in the arts?

That’s an interesting question, because it is those teachers in high school who plant that seed in you. My passion for theatre and music really began thanks to Mrs. Heidie Dunn, Ms. Tina Cox and Mr. Dan Finley. They were so dedicated and cared so much about the students, and I wanted to give that to my own students. I want them to know that they are my priority. I had always loved music, but it wasn’t until high school that I realized this is what I wanted to do with my life. My experience in McHenry was kind of a catalyst for everything. It was actually Dan Finley who pushed me into going to VanderCook College of Music in Chicago, because he went to school there, so I owe that to him. That school prepared me for teaching anything. I actually didn’t teach voice at first. My first job at Curie was teaching piano, and even then, I was drawing on my experience of playing piano for the high school choirs, as well as writing my own songs. I wrote my first musical in high school.

What led you to Curie Metropolitan High School?

Since I grew up in the suburbs, I had a fear of city high schools, so I wanted to go teach band in the suburbs. I student taught in Schaumburg, and the school had money, they had instruments, and they already had a strong arts program. This was the type of school that I wanted to be in. I wasn’t getting the calls I wanted after submitting resumes, and a friend of mine from VanderCook said, “My old high school’s hiring.” He loved Curie and put it on a pedestal, so his recommendation led me there. To me, at first, it was just a job teaching piano. I didn’t know what to expect. Would I have to wear a bullet-proof vest? Am I going to have to go through security when I get there? People hear “inner-city kids” and they have such a warped mindset about them. There are problem kids everywhere, it doesn’t matter where you are. But these kids were wonderful. I taught piano for five years before I even taught choir. The more I was at the school, the more I realized that this was where I’m needed. These kids need a good music teacher who can push them to do their very best. This is my twelfth year there now, and it feels like home.

Had your background in piano prepared you for teaching choir in terms of understanding tone and melody?

Well, piano was, for a long time, my main instrument. My parents bought me my first keyboard when I was so young that people actually questioned them. I was a wee little child when I started playing with it. When my parents bought me a piano in high school, I literally just sat there for hours making up songs and playing with harmonies. Segueing from that into a piano position as an instructor was almost seamless, even though it’s not what I intended to do. My first year at Curie, which was 2005-2006, I became friends with the new choir teacher, who was also really into musical theatre. She thought that we should both be involved in the school musicals, which were big back then, before budget cuts took their toll. I helped to direct a show, and she ended up leaving, which opened up a chance for me to be the sole person that was going to be working with vocals in the music department. It was during my second year that I directed my first musical, “Bye Bye Birdie,” a lighthearted fun piece. The kids and I had a really good rapport, and I thought, “This is cool. I can do singing after school and piano lessons during the day.” The following year, we did “Into the Woods,” and after that was done, the kids were like, “Can we keep singing after school?” I said, “Alright, but you’ve gotta be here every day. You’ve gotta commit.” That’s when Musicality was born.

We didn’t know what kind of music we were going to do. “Spring Awakening” had just come out, and I thought it might be something that the kids would actually like. It has kind of a rock edge, a folksy edge, and a little pop influence. We ended up selecting “I Believe” from the show because it’s basic and repetitive, but has beautiful harmonies. After I heard them perform it and saw their potential, we decided to name the group in order to make it official. I don’t recall exactly who came up with Musicality, but that is what stuck. Believe it or not, back then, we didn’t have quite enough people, so we literally had to have the kids pull in their friends. We’re talking people with no experience, people who may be classified as tone deaf. But I worked with them and they improved. Another of the first pieces we performed was from “The Pirate Queen,” which was a little-known musical by the composers of “Les Misérables.” For the third song, I arranged “Blackbird” by The Beatles, and seeing my vision and arrangement come to life musically was amazing. When our group started to sound better than the choirs, the school began asking, “Why isn’t he teaching choir?” In my sixth year, I was moved to teaching choir full-time. It was a complete switch from piano, and I knew that this was exactly what I wanted to be doing.

What is the importance of Musicality as an outlet for these kids, not just in that particular community, but at that point in their lives?

First of all, working with teenagers makes me glad I don’t have my own kids. There are so many feelings, so many issues, and you wanna be like, “They are over-dramatic.” But their feelings are so real in everything that they’re going through. At that age, you need something to latch onto where you can express yourself and get these feelings out. You need a community, and that’s what’s great about theatre or music. That community becomes a second home, and to many, a first home. These programs are vital, especially in communities with lower income homes. Who knows what these kids are going home to? They need a place where they can escape from what may be difficult situations. Many times, the kids will tell me that they need this in their lives. If they don’t have this outlet for their emotions, they’re going to get it out in other ways. Musicality is a place where they can be safe, where they have friends who can steer them in the right direction, and where they have no chance of making bad choices.

To many kids at our high school, Mrs. Dunn was much more than a teacher. She was a mother to her students long before she had a child of her own. In Musicality’s first appearance on “America’s Got Talent,” you referred to the students as “your kids,” and one of the girls teared up. How do you navigate that closeness with students?

It’s funny that you mention Mrs. Dunn. Every day during my last period I had free, I went to her room, me and Adrian Warren, my best friend from that time. We would just sit in there and talk to her. Some teachers take on many different roles, and I’ve noticed that some of my students look at me as more than a teacher. That girl who cried in the clip you mentioned had told me before, “You are a father figure to me.” Another student, Ulises, told me that I taught him more than even his own father had about what it means to be a man, to be a respectable person. As he was telling me this, my mind was overwhelmed. You think you’re just teaching the students, but it’s so much more. When you’re a teacher, you take on so many hats, and it’s hard to navigate between them at times. One minute, you’re the instructor. The next minute, you’re a counselor to a student who has an issue that they need help with. The next minute, you’re a mentor steering a student in the right direction. And then there’s the moments where they just want to have fun with you. That’s where you have to really watch the boundaries and make sure that the kids don’t lose respect for you. You always want them to respect you as a teacher. If that respect isn’t there, then that’s when things fall apart. So it’s a juggling act, but at the end of the day, it is completely worth it, because the impact you’re having on these kids is probably going to last throughout the rest of their lives.

So how in the world did you get on “America’s Got Talent”?

I had never, not even once, thought of going on a reality competition. I had watched a couple of the early seasons of “America’s Got Talent” with my college friends and we’d go, “Why are we watching this?” [laughs] Anyway, the students and I had just filmed our music video of “Wait For It” from “Hamilton.” The themes of that show are especially meaningful for our group, and I think that’s why people like seeing us perform songs from it. It was our first video that ever blew up overnight, approaching 100,000 views on YouTube. Our channel started getting a lot more traffic, and celebrities on Twitter started posting things about us, including the “Hamilton” Twitter page. I got a call on my voice mail from a guy who later e-mailed me and said he had a project he wanted to discuss. I was super-busy at the moment, so when I got home, I finally called the guy, and he’s like, “I saw your group on YouTube. Do you guys like pop music?” I’m like, “Yeah,” and he goes, “Well I’m interested in you submitting for ‘America’s Got Talent.’”

I was immediately taken aback. Us? We had been focusing on “Hamilton” so much that our pop song repertoire was low at that point. So I suggested two songs we had performed in the past, “Elastic Heart” by Sia and “Night Changes” by One Direction. He said, “Great, send both of those.” We sent both, he liked them, so he took them to the producers, and after a long wait, we got the news that they liked them too. The show has close to 30,000 acts to look at through open calls and online auditions, but in order to pull from every possible resource, they also have casting directors seeking out talent, and one of them found us. Eventually I got a call from a producer who said, “We would love for you guys to come to Los Angeles and do a live audition in front of the judges.” When I replay that moment in my mind, it still feels surreal. You’d think that being on a reality show would make you feel on top of the world, but in reality, it happens faster than you’re ready for it.

I told her yes before I even asked the school. When I did ask, I told them that this would be an all expenses paid trip to L.A., and I made sure to name the judges, because the school needed to know this was a big deal. We weren’t just auditioning, we were selected for this. The school was extremely supportive, and they bent some rules because it was so last-minute. There were 16 kids in the group, and we had one alternate. I knew that the alternate was going to be devastated if she was left behind, so I had her join us.

When did you decide that “Night Changes” would be your audition song?

“Elastic Heart” was everyone’s first choice. We got there, they heard us rehearse it and they were underwhelmed. Something was off about it. I think it was nerves. So we sang our backup song, “Night Changes,” and the vocal coaches said, “We think that’s the better choice. You guys were more comfortable, you enjoyed it more, and we got a better feeling when you did it.” I was so happy. They literally switched the song hours before the audition, and we realized right there that this is how showbiz works. They also asked us if we could change the ending because it wasn’t hitting enough. We ended up outside the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, literally on some corner, rewriting and rehearsing the ending on the spot.

I want to know more about the stairwell where your group rehearses.

I actually got a lot of angry responses from people when I mentioned the stairwell. There are other spaces at our school to rehearse, but the issue is that they are often taken up by other classes. There were times when we were in a cafeteria, as well as times when we had to move because we were too loud for the academic classes nearby. No matter where we went, it just wasn’t working. We found the stairwell one year, and the acoustics were amazing. So it has mainly to do with what is available in our building schedule-wise, but obviously, on a show like this, you really have to be strategic in what you say. When I told them we rehearse in a stairwell, the producers said, “That’s all you need to say.” The narrative you’re telling is just as important as what you are putting onstage. In fact, it’s even more important in some cases. Simon Cowell had told us that we weren’t the strongest vocalists and that we lacked consistency. But what this group stands for is more than just pitch-perfect singing. It stands for heart and perseverance. That’s the narrative the show wants and that’s honestly the narrative I want for us too.

If that narrative is in line with the message you want to convey, then it’s not exploiting anybody.

Exactly. It was also important to me that I never said the name of the school on the show. People are already mad that I mentioned the neighborhood being “rough,” because it is not the worst neighborhood in the city. But it is not the best neighborhood either. When you have an alumnus who dies from gang violence two blocks from our school, that’s a problem to me. A lot of our Musicality kids knew him personally. This year alone, we have lost two of our kids to gun violence. And yet, I’ve had to defend myself so many times. One woman came up to me and said, “The boundaries of Archer Heights, where the school is, are statistically not that high in terms of violence,” and I’m like, “When I went on the show and said it’s a rough neighborhood, I’m not talking about these small boundaries. I’m talking about the South Side of Chicago, which anyone can say is a problem.” Teachers at the school have told me, “You exaggerated so much,” and I’m like, “You’re driving here from the suburbs!”

I even had to explain myself to State Rep. Burke, who represents the area where we’re from. He took us out to dinner and asked, “So was that mostly production that was pushing you to say that?” and I’m like, “They actually did want me to push that part of the story, but I also did not want to exaggerate it to the point where it was fake.” It is a rough area. The first student who was killed this year was a passenger in a car going to a birthday party. A random victim of gunfire. This is something that the kids are afraid of. I even had alumni tell me that I was making the school look bad, and the fact is, the school has changed so much. When I first started, those students were a different group than who I have now. I’ve had to change my teaching a lot because it’s getting rougher and rougher. One of my students, Ephram, told me a story of how his mom had to pull him off the porch because there was gunfire. Another student, Roxie, lives a five-minute walk away from school, and there’s a bullet hole in her front window. Do people not care about this stuff? They just don’t listen, they don’t want to hear it.

I imagine it must’ve been an incredibly delicate process that enabled your student, Reggie Woods, to open up about the death of his sister during your second appearance on the show.

Between round one and round two, you are not guaranteed to come back, even if you get four “yes” votes. It was a very scary time for us, so we sent them the best songs we could. I remember “Skyscraper” was my choice, and it was the first song I sent them. Then I got pulled into the principal’s office, and the assistant principal said to me, “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Reggie Woods was just informed that his sister has passed away.” I was speechless. Reggie is one of the most important people to me in this school. He has a heart of gold and has so much potential to do amazing things in his life. He’s really like the beaming light of the group.

He was practically bursting with joy during the first audition, and is even the one who announced, “We are Musicality!”

That’s why I picked him to say it. Of all the people to have to deal with tragedy beyond belief. I remember first seeing Reggie after I had learned, and all I could do was hug him. There were just no words I could even say to him. It was probably a week later I got a call from “AGT” saying we were going to be coming back, and that they wanted an update on the group. So I started with the good stuff—we had three couples happen during our first time in L.A., which was kind of like a love connection trip where all these people started to become closer. Then I mentioned that the sister of one of our students was murdered and left behind a dumpster. I recommended that they call him personally because I didn’t want to overstep what he was comfortable with them knowing. These people at “AGT” were so sweet and kind to the point where you really believed that they cared about you. The woman I spoke to called Reggie, and he felt really good talking to her.

It was then that we pretty much knew they were going to want us to talk about it on the show. It’s not so that they could get a good story, it’s because it’s an important thing for people to know, and it’s an important story to tell. I remember we got to the holding area, which was a big basement at CBS Studio Center. The executive producer came out and said that he wanted to talk to me and Reggie. Though he didn’t want us to do anything we didn’t want to do, he believed that the story Reggie had to tell could help other people—losing someone and then being able to come back from it. Anyone who sees it who has lost someone can get hope from it. He said, “We will be extremely tasteful about it,” and they were. When I watched it, I was like, “Wow, that got to me.” Reggie was extremely brave, and I told him that he should cry whenever he needed to cry and that he should walk away from the camera anytime he wanted.

I do recall a shot of Reggie crying while being embraced by you and Anna Huang, who sang so beautifully on that episode.

I remember that exact moment. We had a real holding area and then a fake holding area where they film you. The whole group was feeling dismay and sadness. To see someone like Reggie who is bright and joyful go through this was not good for anyone. He broke down in the fake holding area, and Anna and I went to him. We knew they were going to get that on camera because the boom mic came out right away. A lot of reality TV isn’t real, but that moment was an exception.

Musicality’s performance of Demi Lovato’s “Skyscraper” was a transcendently powerful moment because the emotion that your students were conveying was entirely genuine.

I loved that song from the get-go because of its message. When this happened to Reggie, the song took on a whole new meaning. It was a new song after that. Anna was struggling vocally because she was getting sick, and I just told the kids that they needed to feel the song because the emotion is what carried it through. The show can edit what they want—they can even edit your vocals, and I noticed that they edited a lot of people’s vocals in post. The number one thing they can’t edit are your emotions. You have to give it all you’ve got, and they did. The song choices were spot-on for the first two rounds, and part of the reason is because they give you a lot more freedom during that period. I could push the songs that I wanted.

That second round, though, was the hardest time we went to L.A. The results were obviously amazing, but the feeling was not good. Getting through was a healing thing for us, but it doesn’t heal everything. When I watched the moment right before they tell us we’re going to live shows, Reggie looked like he was going through agony. You could tell that he needed to go through. When we did, I remember telling him, “Your sister is here with you. I believe she’s your angel.” He said there was a flower growing outside his family’s house that never grew, and he thought that was because of her. I get chills just thinking of talking to him about this because those conversations run so deep. We were the last group to get through, and I called it too—I told everybody, “We are going to be the very last group and they couldn’t have picked a better way to do it.” We were emotional like crazy, and Simon did that whole thing where he tricked us by starting with, “I’m sorry guys…” They have it down to an art. They try to set it up so they get real reactions.

I noticed that there was something off about the sound in the episode where Musicality delivered its third performance, singing Ariana Grande’s “One Last Time.”

I’m glad you picked up on that because a lot of people didn’t. Smart people can figure that out, but we got so much crap from that song. That’s when we started getting hate online, and what sucks is that the kids came offstage feeling great about it. In the room, it was perfect. Listening back, I heard major sound issues. Our first two soloists’ mics were turned up—they were hot—and those mics were kept hot through the whole song, while all the rest of them were turned down. Not only that, we had issues with in-ear monitors, which we couldn’t work with for some reason. They had all the voices blasting in one ear, which was confusing, and resulted in the singers not being in line with the music. In a room that large, you are going to hear the delay and sing to the delay. You are singing to the reverb. That’s why the rhythm was off in that song. I didn’t realize until later what they should’ve done, which was just play the click track and a very low instrumental, and that’s what we did at semifinals.

The quarterfinals was the first live show of the year, and technical issues are to be expected, but that was a really hard time for us. I told the kids not to go through social media comments, but some of them got sucked into that rabbit hole. I told them that they didn’t even need to watch the episode. What they should remember is the moment they were there, and the adrenaline they felt when people were freaking out and standing up for them, and when the judges gave them good feedback. However, “One Last Time,” was not our first choice. We spent our entire summer learning songs lasting one minute and thirty seconds to two minutes, trying to find the right one. We’d submit them, and then the producers would suggest some. “One Last Time” was a song I threw at them, but was hoping they would not revisit it. I actually preferred to do Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” for the quarterfinals, and then do something more hard-hitting emotionally for semifinals. But they took a different path from that and that’s their prerogative.

In my interview with another Chicago contestant, the amazing young opera singer Laura Bretan, she told me that the “AGT” producers had encouraged her to sing Celine Dion’s “The Prayer,” and transformed it into an operatic piece for the show. 

What’s annoying is when you hear judges complain about the song choice. You can’t call them out for it, because then you’re going to get sued or something. I feel like saying, “Yeah, I agree. I wanted a better song too.” [laughs] But you’ve gotta deal with it and make it work.

Did you and the kids get to do any sightseeing while in L.A.?

On average, we got about a day and a half off each time. One boy in the group shared a story with me about how his family had immigrated from Mexico when he was little. His parents had comforted him by saying, “You’ll get to go see Mickey Mouse in Disneyland someday.” So when we got to go to Disneyland as a group, the boy said, “Gibson, you don’t understand. This is what I’ve had on my bucket list!” I could do nothing but smile. He ended up taking a picture with Mickey Mouse.

Prior to your fourth appearance on “AGT,” Musicality received a $5,000 grant at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s annual grants gala, which I covered the previous year. What was it like attending that event?

Believe it or not, I’m not a very social person. I keep to myself, I’m not confrontational, I’m not the one to go up to stars and talk to them. So when I got the call that we were getting that award, and they’re like, “You can come if you’re in L.A.,” I knew that I had to get a plane ticket. They said I could bring a plus one, so I asked my mother because she is probably the most supportive person in my music life. I’m a schoolteacher, so I never thought I’d be in a room filled with movie stars and celebrities, getting a grant that I didn’t expect. After arriving there, I went backstage and met Gina Rodriguez, who was incredibly sweet. When she talked about our group onstage, she went completely off-script. She’s from Chicago, she’s Latina, and she knows how it is here. As soon as she did the presentation, I was just glowing. It may have been an even prouder moment than when I was on “AGT,” just hearing someone speak about the group in a room filled with people who have influence. They played the “Skyscraper” clip because they knew it would tug on the heartstrings. When it was done, I got to mingle. I went up to Renée Zellweger, and she wanted to hear all about Musicality.

Chaz Ebert attended the gala, and told me that Musicality stole the show. 

It was amazing. I spoke to the member of the Hollywood Foreign Press who had learned of us. After seeing Musicality on “AGT,” she went directly to the HFPA and asked, “Can we make a last-minute addition?” People usually have to apply for these grants, and this was handed to us from the kindness of one woman who saw us and was touched by us. That’s when I started to see that there are amazing people out there that are looking to do good, and she was one of them. $5,000 for our group is a lot for us. After the show, she encouraged me to apply for next year, and I definitely intend on doing that.

I started to get angry at “AGT” toward the end, when judge Mel B would harp on things she hadn’t before in acts she had supported up until then, criticizing Musicality’s rendition of “Born This Way” by labeling it “a well-rehearsed school performance.”

Part of it comes down to taste, but the thing they didn’t show on TV is after she said that, she turned right away to the other judges and said, “But I love them!” I think they needed something, you know? The fact that Simon Cowell remained a fan of us the whole time was shocking to me, so when Mel B came out and said that, the group was devastated. They knew that it meant this was the end for them. There were tears of disappointment backstage, and I remember me being the leader thinking, ‘I can’t be disappointed right now. I have to tell them we gave it our all.’ Lifting them up from that was difficult. Now we can joke about it and go, “Remember when we were eliminated?” I felt relief more than anything, because the show just weighed heavily on me all the time, from our initial audition last March through our elimination in August. I was so overwhelmed and happy that we even got to semifinals. We were in the top 20 out of 30,000 acts. Yes I can be disappointed, but I’m not going to be sad.

Were there particular contestants on the show that you bonded with?

You spend so much time sitting around backstage, so you get to know people really well. Our group in particular got very close with Laura. I have the utmost respect for her as a young lady. I’m not going to call her a girl because she’s way too good for that. [laughs] Jayna Brown was another one that we got along with so well. Holy cow, was she a good singer. I remember going up to her and saying, “You need to be in the top ten.” Then she got cut, which was crazy to me. One of the things we talked about with the other contestants we grew close to was how we sensed favoritism on the show, how some people get more attention than others.

You can sense it at home.

I love Grace VanderWaal, who ended up winning. She’s such a sweetheart. But when you’re watching Jimmy Fallon and he brings up Grace and no one else from the show, you can tell that “AGT” has an idea of who they want to win. They’re going to push it in that direction. Grace is talented in her own right, though I know she’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Her songwriting floors me for her age.

What the show ultimately boils down to is a popularity contest where the most blatantly commercial act prevails.

There’s so much variety represented on every episode, and you could tell the show was pushing singers last year. Grace is the first female singer to win since season one. The most disappointing thing was that after we were eliminated, it was basically, “Bye, you have to leave.” We didn’t get to say goodbye to our producer, who we loved. And I understand why. There’s so much happening, and everyone has to move on to finals. There are so many people—production assistants, the contestant manager—that you get close to and then you don’t get to say goodbye to any them. That was the saddest part. All we got was a therapist who met us backstage and said, “You are allowed three pajama days. After that, if you’re still hurting, call me.” I remember I actually got my phone out and filmed myself walking out of the Dolby Theatre when we left. We were walking out of probably the biggest thing that’s ever happened to us, while realizing that the ball was now in our court.

What are your plans for the future of Musicality?

The first thing that I want is for it to be a nonprofit that’s more inclusive. Right now we’re at one school. There are kids out there who need something like this. Being so attached to CPS is not necessarily the best thing for us, though our principal was incredibly supportive during our insane schedule last fall. We had nonstop performances from September through December. Our buses didn’t come out of Musicality’s budget, they were paid for by the school. The blessing of Adidas came along, and they built a recording studio for us at Curie. I told the “AGT” group towards the end of our time on the show that we were booked with gigs that could be great opportunities for networking and exposure. When we performed at the state inauguration in January, the chancellor of University of Illinois Springfield came directly up to me and said, “Send some of these kids our way for music scholarships.”

So I told the kids that even after graduating, they have the option of staying in the group for the rest of the year. When people started failing to show up to gigs, I realized that the “AGT” experience may have gotten to some of their heads. Right now, I’m re-auditioning the group, and most of the students will stay on. The people who aren’t cutting it are very few. The group itself is still wonderful, but it’s hard when people start falling through. Maybe it’s just time for them to move on. The one thing that I told the kids was, “It’s very easy to be on a reality show and even win, and then fade into nothing.” How many “American Idol” winners can you name?

Jennifer Hudson! Oh wait… 

[laughs] I know, she didn’t even win! We had our time, and now it’s up to us not to fade into oblivion. The number one way is to keep working, keep putting content out there, keep sharing our music and take every gig we can. We love corporate events because whatever we want them to pay us, they will. We’ve got to do those because we’re still trying to raise money for the school. Our performance at Chicago’s Thanksgiving Day parade was one of my favorite gigs we had. Now I just need to get this group solid again. I’m not going to be angry at anyone who doesn’t feel like this is for them anymore, because that opens it up to someone else who deserves an opportunity. When one door closes, another one opens.

This month, Musicality was re-auditioned and now has three new singers and four new alternates. On Sunday, March 19th, Musicality will perform at the Young Entertainment Awards (YEA) at the Globe Theatre in Universal Studios Hollywood. According to Gibson, “YEA honors young people in the entertainment field, and we are privileged to have been selected as this year’s Scholarship Award winners. It is such a huge honor to be recognized by an organization that supports youth in the arts and understands the necessity for arts education.” The group is very excited to be heading back to L.A.

For more information on Musicality, visit their official Facebook page or follow @MusicalityVocal on Twitter and Instagram.