Gayle Levin had seen Visions perform at a Jewish Community Centers Association biennial meeting. The family also attended the group's 2003 performance in Kansas City. The entire family liked them.
"Where a Rick Recht might have appealed to a certain age, the older generation might not have wanted to sit and listen," Gayle Levin said. "Visions really does cross all generations."
The next step was to discuss the possibility of bringing Visions to KC with Beatrice Fine, the JCC's cultural arts director. Fine then set the wheels in motion.
"Visions had the date, and it all came together," Gayle Levin said. She would love it if the concert can "inspire somebody else to think a little bit differently than the usual."
The Levins will still have some traditional Bar Mitzvah celebrations, including a Kiddush luncheon accompanied by a DJ immediately following the Shabbat-morning service.
"We're not completely innocent of falling into the trappings," Gayle Levin said." It occurred to me that he's a kid, and he's worked hard for four years, and maybe he should get some type of a celebration."
"We're not doing a baseball theme or a music theme. Our theme is Judaism and tzedakah," she said. "Instead of teaching our kids to see if we can have a party that's better than the Schwartzes, it's teaching our son that tzedakah and taking care of people in the community is more important than ice carvings."
"It is so wonderful of the Levin family to celebrate Jarret's Bar Mitzvah in this meaningful way in supporting the Jewish Community Center's performing arts department. We are very touched and hope others think of such donations in the future," said the JCC's Fine.
Jarret is also doing a mitzvah project, collecting bean-bag animals to be given to foster homes and charities in Kansas City and Israel. At first, he tried to collect 10,000 animals before revising his goal down to around 1,500.
"We meet such wonderful people everywhere we go," Osteen said. "Kansas City is one of the warmest cities we've been to, and it would be great to meet (Jarret) in particular."
The trio - Osteen, Andra London and Amy Turner - has been performing since 1997.They first came together as a group after Cantor Allan Robuck of Congregation Ohev Shalom of Orlando, Fla., asked them to sing at High Holy Days services. The cantor had trained each of them for their own Bat Mitzvahs and thought they would sound good together.
They have since produced three CDs. The first, "Living the Dream," was released in 1997 and has been a major fund-raising success for their Orlando congregation, Ohev Shalom. In the spring of 2000 they released "In Our Hearts, In Our Prayers." Visions' third CD, "Light of Dawn," was produced in 2002. Original songs by the young women are interspersed with ones written by or in collaboration with Tamara Kline, Josh Nelson (Nelsongs and Yom Chadash), and Cantor Robuck. A fourth CD is on the drawing board.
Visions has performed at synagogues across the country, as well as for major Jewish organizations such as United Jewish Charities, Jewish National Fund, Israel Bonds, AIPAC, Hadassah and B'nai B'rith International.
They perform once or twice a month while balancing college classes and professional responsibilities. The former Floridians are now scattered: Osteen lives in New York. London lives in Atlanta and attends Emory University. Turner is a senior at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.
"We know this music," she said. "It just comes very naturally. Especially when you've sung with the same girls for eight years, you know each other's voices very well."
Turner, who will graduate this spring, said she plans to take a year off from school and then return to graduate school with the ultimate goal of becoming a clinical psychologist.
Osteen said the balancing act each member of Visions performs is worth it because they are able to combine their love of Judaism and their love of music.
"My goal is to connect with people and to have a positive influence on people," Osteen said. "I hope that I do that with all my work, and I know that Visions has a unique capability to do that. I think that's why all of us continue to do it. Singing Jewish music is one way of uplifting people, individuals and communities." Osteen, who is a graduate of the University of South California with a double major in film production and communications in the entertainment industry. She is currently working in New York as a creative assistant and an executive assistant to the president of Blueprint Films. She has done her "fair share of acting" in the past, but is now focusing on writing and directing.
"We legitimately enjoy what we do," she said. "We're having a good time. It's not staged. When we're up there and we're smiling, we're actually having a great time, and we hope that everyone else will enjoy it."
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