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                                         0. Plight of American Music Discussion Guide


1. America's Hot Musician Moves to the Oxygen Network with National Symphony Orchestra Principal Second
Violinist Marissa Regni and Former Duke Ellington Trombonist Gregory Charles Royal as Judges


2.  "Idol-like" Show for Instrumentalists, AMERICA'S HOT MUSICIAN, Begins Production in                        
Spring , 2006

3. Historic Conference to Address Classical Music Culture and the MTV/Hip Hop
Generation Convenes in Washington, DC  AP Daybook Event-Covered by WTTG Fox 5-
Voice of America

4. Controversial Musician Says “Calling Rap Artists Musicians and Rap, Music, is Confusing Kids”


5.REPORT Overview: Major Symphony Orchestras Wrongly Ignore New Paradigm: The Electronic Sampling
Culture of the MTV/Hip Hop Generation


6. REPORT: MAJOR SYMPHONY ORCHESTRAS ILL-SUITED TO ATTRACT MTV / HIP HOP GENERATION


7. "What is the Prognosis for the Future Survival of Traditional American Musical Genre
by the MTV-Hip Hop Generation" by Ava Spece, Executive Director, DC Youth Orchestra Program.


8.. American Teacher Magazine  There's a Lesson in the Music by Roger Glass


9.. Forbes.com/ PRNewswire  Noted Jazz Musician Says MTV/Hip Hop Generation May Kill Classical and Jazz
Music Monday September 26, 4:59 am ET

10.YouTube Show: America's Hot Musician Offered as a Free Syndicated Public Service Television Program
To Promote Instrumental Music Within The MTV- Hip Hop Generation


America's Hot Musician Moves to the Oxygen Network with National Symphony Orchestra Principal
Second Violinist Marissa Regni and Former Duke Ellington Trombonist Gregory Charles Royal as
Judges  



Washington, DC (PRWEB) February 26, 2007 -- America's Hot Musician, the "American Idol-Real
World-like" TV show for Instrumental musicians which was a top rated series on YouTube and on
Comcast public access channels, will begin airing as a weekly sponsored program on the Oxygen
Network in July, 2007. The program's move to Oxygen, a network co-founded by Oprah Winfrey
reaching 65 million households, will propel the show and it's mission, to promote instrumental music in
the MTV/Hip Hop Generation, into the national spotlight. This, at a time when attention on the
generation has been heightened by recent television specials such as CNN's Hip Hop: Art or Poison?

The show also signed National Symphony Orchestra Principal Second Violinist Marissa Regni to judge
alongside the colorful Duke Ellington Orchestra alum and trombonist Gregory Charles Royal.

"This is the first program of its kind that attracts the MTV/Hip Hop Generation in a format and language
they can relate to with regard to instrumental sounds and musicians," says Royal, creator of the
program and Artistic Director of American Youth Symphony(AYS), a Washington, DC based musical
"think tank" that produces the show.

Royal believes that traditional methods which attempt to lure the broader youth culture into taking up
or appreciating instrumental music have been unsuccessful because of unsavvy educators, Public
Broadcasting styled programming and a new paradigm of non-melodious electronic sounds in the
marketplace. "Young listeners actually believe that rap is melodious and the DJ, computer programmer,
and producer are musicians. I have travelled to schools and heard kids say 'why should I learn to play
the trumpet when I can just get my producer to buy some beats (pre-recorded orchestrated samples)
off the Internet and put some raps to it'. I think we should embrace rap as a poetic form but bring back
the days of Ellington when the live musician ran the bandstand, for the sake of future patronage of
traditional musical genres." (AYS,whose Plight of American Music Initiative has been promoted in
hundreds of schools and in publications such as American Teacher, has articles and reports detailing
this subject at their website at www.americanyouthsymphony.org).

The program combines the formats of American Idol and MTV's Real World, where contestants ages 16
to 30 live together in a supervised setting while they compete for a recording contract. The show is
guided by two musical opposites in Royal and Regni.

However, Regni, who has been a principal player in the NSO for over ten years, attended The Juilliard
School and graduated from The Eastman School of Music, is not the stereotypical geeky classical
musician. "Marissa is attractive, hip, and witty, and is obviously extremely talented. She dispels the
stereotypes and will offer a brand new package to Oxygen's young female audience," says Susan Veres,
Executive Director of AYS.

Royal is the streetwise musician. In addition to playing with the Duke Ellington Orchestra for a decade,
he has played with many other top musicians, performed on Broadway, produced rap and pop videos,
wrote and starred in a JVC Jazz Festival play, and actually lived with legendary drummer Art Blakey as a
teen.

Auditions will be held in May, 2007 in Washington, DC and semi-finalists from the YouTube/Public
Access version of the show will receive an automatic bid to the second round of the national
competition. AYS seeks more female participation in this national version of the show and is reaching
out to the instrumental music community to use the program as a forum to promote their missions and
will offer subsidized advertising opportunities.

America's Hot Musician is a program which is long overdue and as Royal says, "The fact that at the end
of a movie I can read who the dang caterer is but I can't see the name of one musician who played the
music, says it all."
Plight of American Music Initiative is a tradename and project  of American Youth Symphony in collaboration with
Susan Veres and Associates and GCR Music Company
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