Vegas Magazine - Niche Media - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/138830
LAS VEGAS ACADEMY CELEBRATES 20 YEARS OF NURTURING VEGAS PERFORMERS ON THEIR WAY TO INTERNATIONAL CELEBRITY. BY MARK ADAMS PHOTOGRAPHY BY RYAN REASON 88 T he Las Vegas Academy of the Arts has come a long way from its scrappy roots as an experimental magnet school on the old Las Vegas High School campus. One example: Last year the music department won its 10th Grammy Signature Schools Gold award, a national record. Considering that the original Fame school, New York City's Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, has 45 years on it, LVA's students have good reason to be singing "You ain't seen the best of me yet." For years after it opened in the fall of 1993, rumors swirled around town that LVA was some sort of cop-out school and didn't even grant a real diploma. Luckily, outsiders quickly noticed the talent emerging from this special institution in the Entertainment Capital of the World. Within a year of its opening, its students were being invited to sing at the White House, and the Academy soon began to pick up state and national awards. Still, many in Las Vegas were skeptical of how the campus's buildings—including some 1930 VEGASMAGAZINE.COM 088-093_V_Feat_FAME_Sum13.indd 88 6/19/13 10:40 AM