Meet the winners of Outschool's Music Showcase

More than 600 kids submitted their performances. 9 became finalists. And on December 13, the Outschool community came together live to celebrate all of them — and award the Music Showcase grand prize winners.

Here's what happened.

What the showcase was about

The Music Showcase invited kids ages 6–18 to perform in three categories: vocal, instrumental, and performance. Submissions were reviewed across age groups — 6–9, 10–13, and 14–18 — producing a grand prize winner per category, plus a Showcase Favorite chosen by community vote.

The Audrey Nuna masterclass

Before the live event, the finalists got something rare: a private masterclass with Grammy-winning artist Audrey Nuna.

Nuna is one of the voices behind KPop Demon Hunters — Netflix's most-watched film — where she performs as the character Mira as part of the fictional group HUNTR/X. The group's song "Golden" won Best Song Written for Visual Media at the 68th GRAMMY Awards in 2026, a landmark moment for K-pop in American music history.

In the masterclass, she walked the finalists through her own story — from what music meant to her growing up, through the work of building a career as a genre-blending artist. She shared what she's learned about recording, how to approach a live performance, and what it actually feels like to put your music out into the world. She closed with a personal message for every kid in the room.

It wasn't a celebrity cameo. It was a real conversation about music from someone who clearly still remembers what it felt like to be starting out — and who wanted these kids to carry something useful with them onto the stage.

The grand prize winners

Grand prize — vocal: Sophie C.

Sophie performed on stage under warm orange-red side lighting, singing into a handheld microphone with dark blue draped fabric and soft fairy lights behind her. The setting was intimate and atmospheric — the kind of stage where you carry the room on your voice alone. She did.

Grand prize — instrumental: Elle L.

Elle performed at a Steinway grand piano in a professional recording studio, dressed in a bright red gown and captured in profile, with a full array of microphones positioned over the open soundboard to catch every detail. The setting was quiet and serious. The performance matched it.

Grand prize — performance: Lainey (Elena) T.

Lainey performed in her home entryway — red vest, light-blue shirt, jeans — smiling broadly and gesturing mid-performance with the kind of energy that makes the setting irrelevant. No stage. No backdrop. Just a kid who could hold your attention anywhere.

The Showcase Favorite: Crystal S.

The Showcase Favorite is decided by community vote, not judges. This year, it went to Crystal S.

Crystal performed in a formal deep burgundy halter gown in an elegant stone courtyard, singing into a wireless microphone with a focused, expressive delivery. The people watching the live event cast their votes for her — which says everything about what her performance communicated, even through a screen.

What the grand prize winners take home

Each grand prize winner received a gift card and a meet and greet with Audrey Nuna — a chance to connect one-on-one with someone who has lived the career these kids are working toward.

A note on everyone who performed

Every kid who entered chose to record themselves, share the video, and invite feedback from people they’d never met. That’s not a small thing. And from the vocal submissions to the instrumental performances to the at-home stage setups, what came through clearly was that these kids have been working at something — and they wanted it to be seen.

Music gives kids a way to say something that doesn’t always fit into words. That came through in every finalist performance — in Sophie’s focused stage presence, in the quiet precision of Elle at the piano, in Lainey performing in her entryway like the whole world was watching.

What’s next

Keep an eye out for the next Outschool showcase, coming soon. If your kid has been thinking about trying a music class — or if what you heard here gave you ideas — you can browse music classes for kids and find something that matches what they love.