The Flathead High School Concert Choir leaves next week for a performance tour to Spokane and the Portland area, but before they leave, the students will perform their tour repertoire for their friends, family and fans at home. The choir performs a free concert at 7:30 p.m. Monday in the Flathead High auditorium.

Joining the 45-voice high school choir will be the 75-voice Crown of the Continent Choir, a community adult group also directed by Flathead choir director Kevin Allen-Schmid. Each choir will sing separately and then combine for three pieces as a grand finale. 

Highlights of the concert program include “Gate Gate,” a setting of a Buddhist mantra by Brian Tate; “Yonder Yonder,” a Russian folk song with high tenors and low basses; and “Children of the Earth,” a setting of Chief Seattle’s famous speech by Allen-Schmid.

“Bringing the adult choir together with the high school choir is inspiring to us all,” Allen-Schmid said.

“The students are already addicted to the spiritual fulfillment found in singing these sacred and world classics, while some of the adults are experiencing that kind of thrill in singing together for the first time. But the adults have a maturity of sound that adds to the overall ‘oomph.’ And I couldn’t tell you which age group has the most sparkle in their eyes.”

Following a tradition of more than 50 years, the Flathead choir tours annually to hear and sing with the finest high school and college choirs in the Northwest, to perform in inspiring acoustic venues, to learn from expert directors and to experience arts events at the professional level.  

In addition to singing with the Crown of the Continent Choir, this year’s itinerary involves choral exchanges with Gonzaga, Willamette and Portland State universities and with Union High School in Vancouver, Wash. The choir will attend the Broadway production of “War Horse” while in Portland, and explore the city of roses, which to most Flathead High students is “the big city.” 

The musical high point of their trip will be a full concert performance in the excellent acoustics of Elliot Chapel at Portland First Unitarian Church Feb. 28.