Thursday, April 29, 1999
By JAN HORGEN, Of The Globe-Gazette

MASON CITY - The Mason City High School Concert Choir's final practice will be on the road, somewhere between Mason City and Washington, D.C., for what members hope will be an unforgettable performance.

The choir will compete in the National Invitational Choral Festival at the John. F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.

The three-day festival begins Saturday and is restricted to 28 choirs from across the United States and Canada. Participating choral groups must have earned a top rating in national competition, with final selections completed through video-taped auditions, according to MCHS choral director Joel Everist.

"This is a phenomenal opportunity," Everist said. "To represent Mason City on stage in the Kennedy Center, where the greatest musicians of the world have performed ... an event for students to remember and treasure as long as they live."

The MCHS Concert Choir is the only choral group from the upper Midwest invited to the festival that includes three days of clinical critiques from "world renowned clinicians judging their performances," Everist said. Choirs receiving the top eight competition scores will also give solo performances at the Kennedy Center on Monday.

And between rehearsals and musical competition, there will be daily excursions to the monuments, memorials, and museums and an opportunity to view metropolitan life firsthand, Everist said.

"The trip will be an extension of the classroom, an unparalleled experience - in music, education and culturally." Everist said.

Two large charter buses, loaded down with bulging bags, boisterous teenagers, and a dozen chaperones are set to roll down the road at noon today and return late Tuesday evening.

Return to Kennedy Center Page

*This copyrighted article and photographs are reprinted with the permission of The Globe Gazette and are not to be reproduced.*