Bostonia: Special Campaign Issue

The Singer Katy Lazar

Katy Lazar always wanted to be a performing artist. She began singing at age four, took dance lessons and acted in musical theater as a kid, and dreamed of attending Boston Arts Academy.

“The Wizard of Oz was my favorite movie, and I would dress up as Dorothy or Belle from Beauty and the Beast and sing all of the songs and act it out,” says Lazar (CFA’16).

By the time the South Boston teenager was a junior at Boston Arts Academy, a high school for the visual and performing arts, she had experimented with jazz and classical singing and was thinking about studying voice performance in college. But it was a summer spent at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute (BUTI), a summer training program for aspiring high school musicians, that fixed her plans.

“We were doing so much work,” says Lazar, a mezzo-soprano. “We’d have classes, we’d have lessons, we’d have to practice on our own. But it never felt like work to me. It just felt like something I love to do that was really fun.”

Lazar had plenty of stage experience during her four years at the Boston Arts Academy, singing with the school’s Spiritual Ensemble and singing the national anthem at the mayor’s annual State of the City address. When she entered BU this fall, she became the first Boston High School Scholar to attend the College of Fine Arts. She is majoring in voice performance and studying with Phyllis Hoffman (CFA’61,’67), a CFA professor of music and director of BUTI. Lazar worked with Hoffman at BUTI. “I’m very excited,” she says. ~CKB

The Engineer Rami Yazbeck

In 2009 Rami Yazbeck and his younger brother left their parents and three other siblings in the northern Lebanese town of Jbeil to come to the United States. Yazbeck was 16 years old, a sophomore in high school.

“Education was the main reason,” says Yazbeck (ENG’16). “There is better education here, better colleges. And a better future.”

Yazbeck could understand only a few words of English, but the hardest part, he says, was leaving family, friends, and his hometown. Here, he lived with his aunt and uncle, an electrical engineer, in Dorchester, and learned English by taking ESL classes, talking to people, reading, and watching TV. Last spring, he graduated from the Boston Community Leadership Academy.

Yazbeck is undecided about his major at the College of Engineering, but he has a passion for physics and math. “I want to learn those subjects, and apply them to the real world,” he says. ~CKB

The Future Physician Iniko Jacobs

There’s a story to Iniko Jacobs’ given name. “It’s African for ‘in times of trouble,’” says Jacobs. “The story goes that my family was having a rough patch around the time I was born, so they felt my name should somehow capture the situation. People have put their own spin on it as time goes on, but it all goes back to my mother. I just sort of carry it with pride.”

Jacobs, a graduate of the Brighton pilot school Another Course to College, can also carry with pride the fact that he is a Boston High School Scholar. He says he felt relieved and fortunate when he learned he had received the scholarship. “I felt like the next four years of my life were set,” says Jacobs (CGS’14). “I won’t have to worry about juggling jobs and working off loans and debt.”

Back in his native Antigua, Jacobs had always been involved in community service and other activities, like the running club and a mentoring program. He arrived in the United States when he was in the fifth grade, moved back and forth a bit, and finally settled here during sophomore year.

Jacobs plans on becoming a physician, specializing in oncology. Cancer, he says, has plagued his family. His grandmother recently died of leukemia. But first, he’ll decide on a major, perhaps biology or chemistry, participate in intramural soccer, and try his hand at poetry or writing. “Anything else I will do just to try it,” he says. “You might as well.” ~CKB