Singer-songwriter Olivia Amiri (right) and her mom, actress and author Elizabeth Gorcey. (Photo: Getty Images)

Eleven-year-old music prodigy Olivia Amiri presents the concert Prism with the National Children’s Chorus Thursday, May 17th, at UCLA’s Royce Hall. Musical selections of the evening will chant the praises of diversity from across the globe in a season finale as the National Children’s Choir prepares for its 4th International Tour to Berlin, Prague, Vienna and Budapest. Los Angeles-based professional choir Tonality will also join the Children’s Chorus ensemble onstage, in addition to a special tribute to Leonard Bernstein as part of Bernstein at 100, the worldwide centennial festival in collaboration with the LA Philharmonic.

Amiri was born with a natural musicality-often humming, singing, and dancing to the radio, the stereo, or to the music inside her head. She has studied violin, piano, guitar, and is inquisitive about every instrument or mystery sound she identifies while listening to favorite tracks or seeing a live performance. Amiri composed her first song at the age of six and asked her mom to find a studio where she could finesse and record As We Belong.

Slightly shy at the beginning of the session, Amiri quickly became an empowered creator and collaborator to lock in the melody and instrumentation that would give As We Belong it’s pure, distinctive, celebratory sound. When Amiri composes she often hears the melody first and then lets the lyrics flow to make listeners feel the emotions she felt at a particular moment, about a particular encounter. Amiri believes that certain environments make her feel more creative and allow her to best hear and express the music within her. As a lover of all living things, Amiri often finds inspiration when she is outside, looking at a beautiful sunset or sunrise, under a tree, on a beach, or watching a spider build its web. In the places and with the people that make her heart open its widest, Amiri will begin to scribble lyrics and pick out a melody on the piano.

Since her first composition Amiri has written many more songs. Fly recorded in 2016, was performed by the National Children’s Chorus during their Spring Showcase in May 2017-the first ever ‘kid’ composition to be given this honor. Amiri piano composition, Revenge of the Jealous Left Hand was chosen in 2017 as the winner of Gifted Students Award from the American College of Musicians. She attends private study for composition at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music with Professor Ian Krouse, and has been a guest speaker in his Master’s Program Classes. Olivia also studies piano theory and voice with Dr. Pamela Blackstone, the Associate Artistic Director of the National Children’s Chorus, and has recorded with Frankmusik, a well-known British performer and producer. Currently, Olivia is finishing her first aria in Italian, “Simo Uno”. In “Simo Uno”, Olivia gives voice to the plight of the homeless across America, to the thousands of citizens who are nameless, faceless, statistics in our society.

When Amiri is not reading or working on her music, you can find her playing with her dog, working on her children’s book series, Liv On Life with her mom.

The National Children’s Chorus transforms the lives of young people, empowering them to effectively lead society towards the ideals of artistic excellence, cultural openness and social justice.