Attention Aspiring Justins and Mileys: The Grammy Foundation Wants to Hear From You

Are you—or your kids—in high school and musical enough to be interested in being the next Justin Bieber or Miley Cyrus?

If so, here’s a bit of good news: Tomorrow’s the deadline to register for “GRAMMY Camp L.A.,” a 10-day residential summer music camp in Los Angeles, where, under the guidance of top professionals, teenage musicians can immerse themselves in a creative environment and learn about the commercial aspects of the highly competitive music industry, according to a news release by the GRAMMY Foundation yesterday.

This isn’t of course some fly-by-night summer camp but a full-fledged program for U.S. high school students run by the same 22-year-old organization whose annual GRAMMY awards, held last month in L.A., are the music industry’s equivalent of the Oscars.

The summer camp has been held in Los Angeles for the past six years. This year, for the first time, the camp is being expanded to New York to include a broader range of students.

Scheduled to run July 9–18, the program is designed to expose students to one of six music career tracks: Audio Engineering; Concert Promotion/Production; Electronic Music Production; Music Journalism; Songwriting; and a performance track for Bass, Drums, Guitar, Keyboard, Vocal, and Winds & Strings. All tracks conclude with media projects, CD recordings and/or showcase performances.

The camp will be held at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music as well as at other professional venues across Los Angeles.

Financial assistance is available to qualified applicants. Interested teens or their parents can apply for the summer camp as well as learn more about financial assistance here. And although the deadline for applying is March 31, don’t panic if you think you don’t have enough time: Anyone who completes the online application by March 31 can e-mail grammycamp@grammy.com and request an extension to submit a full application to either the L.A. camp or the one in New York—or both.

The summer music camps should be of especial interest to budding musicians at the and , both of which have full-fledged orchestras. Eagle Rock High even has a Latin jazz band (watch a video of the band playing at City Hall recently on the official launch of Eagle Rock Day).

“I would encourage any U.S. high school student interested in exploring a career in the music industry—whether as a performer, a producer, a songwriter, a journalist, an engineer or a promoter—to apply to one or both of our GRAMMY Camps," Neil Portnow, president/CEO of the GRAMMY Foundation and its founding company, The Recording Academy, was quoted as saying in the GRAMMY news release. “Everything about this unique experience, from the collaborative nature of the creative exchange among campers, to the extraordinary hands-on instruction they receive from GRAMMY®-winning artists and industry professionals, is designed to provide insights, skills and a real-world perspective on what it’s like to work in the music industry.”

Added Portnow: “Every music person I speak to about GRAMMY Camp says, ‘I wish they had something like this when I was young’; it's simply that impactful a program.”

Some 70 percent of camp participants who have applied for financial aid have received it, according to the news release. Students can also receive a discount on their tuition and can apply for paid positions as GRAMMY Camp counselors, provide they are 21 years to 25 years old.

For any further information, contact David R. Sears, The GRAMMY Foundation, at 310-392-3777 or via e-mail at: david@grammy.com.