The students in the Durango High School Choir have been invited to participate in an international choir festival called “Sing the World,” and they need help getting there.
The group will attend the festival in April at Walt Disney Resort in Orlando, Florida. The festival is hosted by World Class Vacations by WorldStrides, the same company that hosted the choir’s trip to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York City in 2022.
Petra Lyon, director of Choral Activities at Miller Middle School and Durango High School, said the entire festival happens at the resort. And the music selection was made to highlight multiculturalism and diversity.
“It’s a great place for international groups to come together,” she said. “It’s a very interesting festival in that it uses the music of Disney to tell a musical story that’s also narrated by a celebrity narrator. Each piece is representative of an area at Epcot, so you have music from the U.K., from Canada, from Asia, from Africa.”
The international choir will be under the direction of Dr. Jeffrey Redding, who also conducted the students at Carnegie Hall, Lyon said, adding that seeing Redding listed as the returning conductor sealed the deal for her and the students.
“That was a big draw for us because my students loved working under him when they sang at Carnegie Hall two years ago, and when I saw that he was directing this festival, that was a huge reason for why I wanted my students to do it,” she said. “He’s a fantastic conductor and he just so relatable and so personable with the students, and they really loved him.”
The goal for the trip is to take 44 students and six chaperones.
How to help
To help the Durango High School Choir travel to the international choir festival:
* Send a check made out to the DHS Choir to Durango High School, 2390 Main Ave., Durango, CO 81301.
* Scan the QR code in this story to donate online.
* Sponsorship forms are also available through the choir.
And that’s where the help comes in.
Lyon said the choir is in the middle of fundraising for the trip, which will cost about $97,000. She said the group, along with smaller fundraisers, such as selling cookie dough, is also launching an online fundraising campaign starting Jan. 3. There are a few different ways to contribute, including the online campaign (see the QR code in this story); sending a check directly to DHS; and sponsoring individual students.
“The timeline for this trip is a little tighter they want all our money in by the end of February because they have to be able to schedule everything at Disney and that takes time,” she said. “The community really came together for us when we went to Carnegie Hall. I also have a handful of students who – we have this thing where we take everybody. We always find a way to take every student regardless of their financial circumstances. … We’re just trying to piece together all the things like we did when we went to Carnegie Hall … we were able to raise the money, but we’re hoping the community might be interested in stepping forward and helping us.”
For Lyon, taking her students to an international festival is not only important for the bond and friendships that form and strengthen during such an adventure, exposing Durango students to a wider world through music is invaluable.
“When I started at DHS six years ago and started rebuilding the choir program there, I had two goals: One was to take them to Carnegie Hall, which we did, and the other was for them to perform with an international choir. And so this is just checking that second box,” she said. “Music is such a universal language (and) having the opportunity to share that universal language with other students from around the world – to me, that’s the ultimate choir experience.”
katie@durangoherald.com
