ETC Announces Recipients of 2013 LDI Student Sponsorship

	ETC 2013 LED Student Sponsorship recipients: Angelina Vyushkova, Bart van den Heuvel, Brandon J. Clark, Chris Collins, Ha-Young Jeong, Jake Kvanbeck, and Nicholas Diaz.

ETC announces the students who have been selected to attend the LDI 2013 trade show, November 22 - 24 in Las Vegas, Nevada, as part of ETC's LDI Student Sponsorship program. In its 14th year, the program awards exceptional lighting-design and stage-technology students an all-expense-paid trip to the LDI trade show to get a behind-the-scenes look at new technology and to network with industry professionals. The sponsorship recipients are also matched with industry luminaries, who offer individual support, advice, and encouragement to the students as they launch their careers.

The 2013 recipients of the LDI Student Sponsorship are:

Brandon J. Clark -- Clark holds a bachelor of arts in theatre through the design/technical track from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Under the mentorship of professor Victor En Yu Tan, he designed the lighting for multiple theater, opera, and dance productions. He has assisted professional lighting and projection designers on shows at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre. Clark has also served as lead lighting technician on several functions for event-production company Digital Sound Systems, Inc., and for Kansas City's Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, where his lighting designs have graced the stage on Hand to Mouth, L'amore non ha pietà in D Minor, and an organ dedication concert.

Chris Collins -- Collins is working toward a master of fine arts in lighting design and technical direction at the University of Alabama, and has a bachelor of arts in drama with a technical theatre concentration from Georgia State University. He has worked as a technical service technician at the Gwinnett Civic Center and Arena, a lighting design instructor and technical director at Brenau University, and a sales representative for ETC dealer Barbizon Lighting. Collins' lighting design credits include Othello and Side Man at the University of Alabama, A Little Night Music at Piedmont College in Georgia, and three circus-art shows at Georgia's Rabun Gap-Nacoochee School.

Nicholas Diaz -- Diaz is currently in his final year of undergraduate education at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in the lighting design program. Diaz spent summer 2013 as a lighting design intern at Visual Terrain, a lighting design firm, developing lighting concepts with senior designers for themed and architectural projects in the United States and abroad. He has worked as a lighting designer at The Belasco Theater in Los Angeles and at Six Flags Great America, and he has been nationally recognized for his outstanding holiday lighting displays.

Ha-Young Jeong -- One of the international students in this year's group of sponsorship recipients is Jeong from Seoul, South Korea. She is in her final year of undergraduate studies in the School of Musical Theater at the Chungkang College of Cultural Industries, and is expected to receive her bachelor's degree in 2014. She has extensive experience in lighting for musicals, serving as the lighting designer for Bare, a design assistant on Urine Town, an electrician for West Side Story, Fame, The Wedding Singer, and Perennial, and a followspot operator for concerts and festivals at the Icheon Art Hall.

Jake Kvanbeck -- Kvanbeck is a master of fine art candidate for lighting design at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. In 2011, he earned a bachelor of fine arts in lighting design at the Theatre School at DePaul University in Chicago. He has designed the lighting for shows such as Next to Normal and Annie Get Your Gun, at the Heritage Theatre Festival and The Philadelphia Story at Live Arts in Charlottesville. Kvanbeck is the recipient of two Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Certificates of Merit for Lighting Design, one for God's Ear in 2013 and the other for Romeo and Juliet in 2012.

Bart van den Heuvel -- van den Heuvel is the second international LDI Student Sponsorship recipient, hailing from Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He is pursuing a bachelor of technical theatre arts with an emphasis on lighting design from the Amsterdam School of the Arts. Van den Heuvel also works as a freelance lighting designer and technician for theater and special events. He has designed the lighting for Amsterdam-based theaters, the Amsterdam Fringe Festival, as well as touring productions. He and a partner created Theatre Katho, a production company highlighting interdisciplinary fine art projects. Van den Heuvel also has experience working as an intern with lighting designers in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, and Belgium.

Angelina Vyushkova -- Vyushkova, currently a graduate student at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, received a bachelor of fine arts with an emphasis on theatre design and production from Texas Christian University in 2012. Originally from Russia, she earned a diploma from Perm Art College #1 in 2004. Her light designs have been seen on stage at the Hardy and Betty Sanders Theatre, the W.E. Scott Theatre, and Bass Hall in Fort Worth, Texas. Vyushkova was the lighting and scenic designer for That's Absurd! at the Edinburg Fringe Festival. Her work has garnered two USITT Awards for Excellence and an award for Excellence in Scenic and Lighting Design through the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.