The Test of Early Success : For Two Young Performers, a Win Is Only Just a Start

Cristin Mortenson and Jessica Vallot had barely had enough time to let it sink in.

The two Los Angeles-area 17-year-olds had won a major arts competition and were the subjects of instant media attention. They also received accolades from teachers and fellow students who say they expect great futures for the two girls.

Now the real test begins: to deal with the challenge of early success and to succeed again.

Mortenson and Vallot were two of four winners in the first Winterfest Spotlight Award Competition, a performing arts contest sponsored by the Pacific Telesis Foundation and presented by the Music Center Education Division. The winners, including Haldan Martinson and Douglas Addison, received $5,000 each at the Dec. 5 competition at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. They will appear Thursday on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson,” where they’ll re-create their winning performances. Carson also contributed $20,000 to the contest.

“It blows my mind away,” says vocalist Mortenson of Glendale, who also will appear on a Rose Parade float.

After enduring years of intense competition and endless hours of training, the two L.A. County High School for the Arts students have finally made a significant mark.

To Mortenson and Vallot, it’s all uphill from here.

“I just want to keep going,” says Vallot of North Hollywood, who won in the dance category. “if there’s another competition, I’d like to enter it. I don’t want to slack off ever.”

“Both these girls are motivated and driven,” says D’liese Melendrez, assistant principal of the County High School for the Arts. “But they have control of the situation. They’re very well-balanced.”

Mortenson, who started voice lessons when she was 8, hopes that the award means she’s on schedule to fulfill her dream of becoming a resident soprano at the Metropolitan Opera by the time she hits her vocal peak, which is usually age 35 for opera singers, she says. “That’s my ultimate goal. I’d like to be a world-renown diva.”

Vallot’s plans are similarly ambitious. Though ballet is her favorite form of expression, she’s willing to try acting, writing and even modeling, as well as other types of dancing. “I just recently got a dance agent. But I’d like to do everything,” she says.

Vallot has been studying ballet and other forms of dance for 7 years, but the Winterfest triumph wasn’t her first brush with fame. Between ages 8 and 12, Vallot appeared in TV ads for McDonald’s and Dr Pepper, among others, sharing center stage with David Naughton in the popular “I’m a Pepper” commercial.

According to Melendrez, dance was a crucial discovery for Vallot. “She was a high-risk kid, high risk meaning she was in danger of dropping out of school. She could have easily fallen on the wrong side, but her dance has pulled her onto the right track.”

Vallot credits Ko-Ran Brown Lehman, a dance instructor at school, for turning her around. Two years ago, the teacher took Vallot under her wing while the student was struggling through a period of self-doubt.

“She looked a little hungry,” Brown Lehman recalls. “I just grabbed her and worked with her.” Brown Lehman choreographed Vallot’s triumphant Winterfest performance and praises the girl’s natural ability and “inner emotion.”

The girls’ victories didn’t surprise Melendrez, who has seen several students win major competitions in her 2 years at the school. Though these student awards provide extra incentive, the faculty cautions the 400 students against overconfidence. “We teach them that an award doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve made it,” Melendrez emphasizes. “We try to go for the no-stars feeling here.”

Mortenson and Vallot are able to move an audience emotionally, and this set them apart from the 280 original entrants in the Winterfest competition, says Barbara Haig, coordinating producer of the event and manager of special projects in the education division for the Music Center.

“We were looking for young artists who have that special something that says, ‘Look at me,’ ” Haig explained.

Mortenson describes the Winterfest experience as “a long 3 months. A lot of kids from my school auditioned. You walk around the halls and smile nervously at the person you’re competing against, and you know there’s a tension and with their friends there’s a lot of bad-mouthing. It gets to a point where you just want to pour your heart out and not deal with the dislike or the anxiety. . . . “

Parents shouldn’t worry about whether this type of competition is healthy for their children, says Linda Muggeridge, who runs the Branislaw Kaper Awards, an instrumental contest sponsored by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. “It could be damaging to a youngster to come here and be blown off the stage,” contends Muggeridge, who is administrator of educational activities for the Philharmonic. “But by the time they get here, those types have been weeded out.”

To achieve success here takes “a level of dedication that’s almost unbelievable. The music is all they do; they go to school, practice and go to bed. I would say that’s true in most of these types of contests,” Muggeridge says.

“If we’re going to have the arts continue, that’s what it takes,” insists Haig, who believes this total devotion early in life is a pattern in the arts.

“While other kids were playing in the schoolyard, I was in a ballet class, Vallot remembers. “It was beneficial to me because not a lot of people know what they want to do early in life and enjoy it, too. Now I don’t like to go through a whole day without dancing or experiencing something with dance.”

Mortenson echoes Vallot’s feelings. “My music is my life, my center from which I base everything I do--my actions, my thoughts, how I live my life. I used to think, ‘Why am I limiting myself from going out with my friends?’ But now I don’t regret it at all.”

Though the award gives new relevance to their sacrifices, Mortenson and Vallot acknowledge that it also creates added pressure to repeat the triumph. Mortenson is especially anxious about a history of allergy problems that threaten her vocal chords.

Vallot, too, feels more anxiety since Winterfest. “She’s frightened now that she’s won,” Brown Lehman says. “But it’s a healthy fear.”

Marc Murai, a 1987 graduate of the County School for the Arts, knows it can be overwhelming to win a major contest. In 1987, Murai won the prestigious Presidential Scholars Award in the dance category for his work in mime, and performed with the other winners for the First Family at the Kennedy Center in Washington.

Now studying acting at Pacific Conservatory for the Performing Arts in Santa Maria, Murai says the award he won and others like it are invaluable to young artists. “We need these contests,” he stresses. “I think many parents are negative toward their kids getting into the arts, but these awards are that extra boost. They open doors.”