Celebration of Music - Talent Search

Vanessa Antoinette Danese is a seventh grade honor's student from Lindenhurst, NY., who loves to entertain. She started singing at the time she said her first words, has been dancing for over ten years, and started her acting career last year.

Her busy home includes her mom and dad, Gilda and Vince, her two brothers, Jaime and Flippy, Fergie the dog, and Moonshine the fish. Outside of her school and entertainment activities, Vanessa loves to read, play tennis, swim, bike, hike, is a girl scout, takes religious education, and likes to hang out with her friends and family. She's bilingual, English and Spanish, and a frequent traveler to Ecuador, her mom's homeland.

As a member of the Suffolk Concert Choir, Vanessa has been performing with the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra of NY since 2016, with performances throughout the NYC area at the Tilles Center, Staller Center, Lincoln Center, Stonybrook Arena, NYS Veteran's Home,Citifield, and Carnegie Hall. Vanessa is also a member of her school's select chorus and orchestra as a violinist.

Over the past year, Vanessa has been in a number of musical theater productions, cabarets and recitals, and has performed in productions of Into the Woods as the Narrator and Mysterious Man, at the Studio Theater in her home town; Show & Tell the Musical's U.S. debut as Portia, performed at The Workshop Theater, off-Broadway; and, is currently rehearsing for the Vanguard Theater Company's off-Broadway production of Children's Letters to God,as part of the ensemble. In March 2018, she was part of PCI's Broadway's Tony Show, performing songs from award winning musicals, at Carnegie Hall. She has also participated in several cabarets at the West End Lounge and Broadway Comedy Club in NYC.

As an actress, Vanessa has been active in student films with recent credits in Short, as Lindsay, directed by Hunter Livingston from the NYU Tisch film school, which has been recognized at film festivals; and Good Immigrants, as the daughter, directed by Suzanne Correa Andrews and produced by Mustafa Kaymak from Columbia University. This year she has had leading roles in three other student films that are in pre and post production.

Vanessa is passionate about a career as an entertainer and is also keenly interested in the environment and social justice issues. She knows that if her efforts don't lead to a career as a singer or actress, she will be able to use her learning experiences in a different industry to help others. She is extremely grateful for the help of her voice coach and mentor, Amanda Chmela, her parents, and all those who have trained and worked with her to become the best she can be every day including Melanie Dominick, Craig Knapp, Karen Lampiasi, Eric Anthony Lopez, Fabian Reyes, Kathleen Reilly, Brooke Procida, Dina Torre, Evan Donnellan, Morgan Knight, Jessica Rofe, Caitlyn Cooke, Patricia Mauceri, Kat Gueli, Steven Altinel, and the team at Diane's Dance Center.

For more information, visit Vanessa Antoinette's website at http://bit.ly/VanessaDanese, or Youtube channel: http://bit.ly/VanessaADanese