Honoring Seven Performers Who Help Shape Young Lives

A group of unsung heroes is about to receive some rare public appreciation. Seven professional performers who have dedicated much of their life’s work to bringing the arts to children in Los Angeles-area schools will be honored at the first Professional Artists in Schools Awards on Sunday at a dinner ceremony at the Empress Pavilion Restaurant.

The event--limited seating will be available for the public--is being presented by two respected veterans in the field, Paul Tracey and Susan Cambigue-Tracey, in cooperation with the Music Center Education Division, Performing Tree, the Intercultural Awareness Program, the Los Angeles Unified School District’s performing arts department, Young Audiences, the Hollywood Bowl and other established organizations and artists who provide arts programming to schools.

Paul Tracey, 57, is a singer-storyteller who has been entertaining schoolchildren for decades with positive messages and the musical lore of Africa and Europe.

His wife, Susan, now a staff member at the Music Center Education Division, is a dance educator. Tracey, whose South African roots can be heard in his mellifluous voice, said that his aim is not only to provide peer recognition, but also to raise public awareness of the value of the arts in education.

“A lot of these people have put in 20 or more years of dedicated work in the schools, but there are no awards for this. We thought it’s really time and we decided, if no one else is doing it, why don’t we?”

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The Traceys and the advisory panel of independent artists and arts organization representatives--”we wanted as wide a spectrum as we could get so it wouldn’t be political in any way”--chose the honorees out of a list of 40 performers “that we thought were special people.”

They are Barry Glass, former artistic director of the internationally known Aman Folk Ensemble and “a visionary of Aman’s educational program”; Judith Helton, who depicts such historical figures as Abigail Adams in her solo shows; dance educator-performer-choreographer R’Wanda Lewis of the R’Wanda Lewis Afro-American Dance Company; Bill Sousa, the guiding force behind Teatro de los Puppets; Carl Weintraub, artistic director of the We Tell Stories theatrical troupe; and John Wood and Pam Wood, well-known for their performances together as J.P. Nightingale, as annual hosts of Open House at the Bowl and as producers of the TAFFY Festival.

“My whole career was inspired by a man who came to my school when I was a kid,” Tracey said. “He played the guitar and sang, and he just blew me away with his expertise and talent. That’s the inspiration I use. I know if I can do a fantastic show for the kids, then the art will carry the message.

“My wife in her dance teaching discovers sometimes that the leaders in her classes are kids whose teachers cannot imagine would ever be a leader,” he said. “The arts are able to produce so many ways in which you can excel. People talk about going back to the basics, but you’ll produce a more balanced person with the arts in your life.”

* Professional Artists in Schools Awards, $25 (includes dinner). Information: (213) 202-2285.