Young Visionaries was designed by arts advocate Diane Volk, and is a VisionIntoArt program headed by Paola Prestini that focuses on bringing music technology and contemporary works to aspiring composers and songwriters in high school. The residency was held for four years at Brandeis High School (NYC) in partnership with the American Composers Orchestra, and was developed with the music department. The students use Macintosh computers to create musical works that entail live sampling, recording, writing lyrics, and production techniques.
Young Visionaries is geared toward the production of a record involving the multiple disciplines represented in VisionIntoArt. Students are mentored through the process of composing on Garage Band, while learning to use basic compositional techniques and software. Students will be guided through standard notation, working with live recorded tracks by the VIA ensemble and learning about basic instrumentation issues, fluent use of Garage Band and basic use of Logic Express.