COUNTYWIDE : 2 Students Reach Semifinals of Music Center Spotlight Awards

Tanisha Miller, an Oxnard High School senior, had never sung alone in public before she performed before judges from the Music Center of Los Angeles County in November.

Christina Shin, a junior at Westlake High School in Thousand Oaks, has been playing the harp since she was 4 years old, started performing about age 6 and performs classical music regularly at recitals.

The two are representing Ventura County in the semifinals of the Music Center’s prestigious Spotlight Awards performing arts competition for high school students.

They are among 370 students from Southern California, including 13 from Ventura County, who entered the competition last fall. Sixty semifinalists are competing in such categories as opera, classical and jazz instrumental music, ballet, modern dance, popular music and musical theater.

Semifinalists take master classes with the Los Angeles Music Center Opera, the Joffrey Ballet, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and other groups. The winners will share $45,000 in scholarship money. “There’s a lot about singing I don’t know, and this will be a good experience for me,” said Tanisha, 17, who plans to attend Moorpark College or Ventura College and to become a professional singer.

Tanisha has taken private piano lessons and a music class at the city’s Wilson Senior Center.

Her school debut, in a duet with a friend at a Christmas assembly, surprised classmates and teachers.

“I didn’t know she was that good until the assembly,” teacher Carol Drescher said. “I think all the students were surprised.”

Christina, 16, began studying piano under her mother’s instruction when she was 3 1/2 and took up the harp shortly after. A junior, she is a peer counselor at Westlake High and works part time in a doctor’s office.

“A lot of people play piano, but playing the harp is very different,” said Christina, who hopes to become a pediatrician.

In her audition to become a finalist over the weekend, Tanisha sang two popular ballads. But the two finalists selected in the popular music category were from Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Christina will perform two classical music selections during her audition Feb. 15.

The 12 finalists will perform at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles on March 10, and a winner will be chosen from each category.