Blind Teen Wins Singing Award

When Arnie and Lilly Rubin of Encino learned their second child, daughter Laurie, was blind, they set out to stimulate her other senses with textures, scents and classical music.

They didn’t know then that their efforts would inspire her.

Rubin, now 18 and an accomplished singer, was one of two in the nation to be named a 1997 Very Special Arts Panasonic Young Soloist, a title given each year to talented young musicians with disabilities.

Program officials said approximately 100 musicians 25 and younger with varied instruments and disabilities applied for the award this year.

In addition to a $5,000 scholarship, the award also will help Rubin accomplish a long-held goal of singing at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., where she will perform Tuesday.

“I didn’t think I’d be singing at the Kennedy until I was in my 50s,” the exuberant teenager said.

Her parents said that when Rubin begins her studies at Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio in the fall, the biggest adjustment they’ll have to make in their empty nest is to the deafening quiet.

Rubin began taking voice lessons at age 12, and as her talent grew, she was asked to sing at charity events.

Soon, the strength of her reputation took her to dinners hosted by Ronald and Nancy Reagan, one honoring Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf and to Mayor Richard Riordan’s 1993 inauguration.

The Oakwood School senior said her transition from these performances to competition--she also was named a finalist in the Music Center Spotlight Awards recently--has been an adjustment.

“I wasn’t ready to go into the world of judges,” she said. “Singing for 10 judges is more daunting than singing for 4,000 people who are there just to share in the music.”

Rubin said she does not mind when people focus on her inability to see, but she has no patience for those who dwell on it.

“I celebrate my blindness,” she said.