Scholarship Dinner

At the age of 12, Jelani won the American Theatre Organ Society's ATOS Young Theatre Organist Competition for ages 13 - 21 from the United States, England, Australia, and New Zealand, and he remains the youngest ever to win that title. In 2001, ATOS named him Theatre Organist of the Year. Blackwood was first introduced to this genius in 2005. Since then, he has returned many times, sometimes even to perform Greig's Piano Concerto in A minor and Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 on the piano. In 2014, Jelani became the first, and only, musician to have a video of his theatre organ performance go viral. Within a few weeks, Jelani's performance of John William's "Star Wars Symphonic Suite" was viewed on YouTube over a million times in more than 200 countries around the world, and within two years that number had more than doubled.