An owl’s hoot and a wolf’s soft howl could be heard in the Lake City High School Auditorium Tuesday as the school’s choir practiced for its performance that evening.

This choir concert wasn’t a typical one: There were no fun sing-alongs or classical pieces. Instead, students performed traditional music from various Native American tribes and foreign countries.

Students have been working on the songs since January, and did a lot of research to go with them.

“Most tribes don’t have a choral tradition,” said Mark Petty, the choir teacher at Lake City. “But recently, there’s been a collaboration between tribes and composers to start bridging a cultural understanding.”

With the help of a grant from the EXCEL Foundation, Petty had all five of his choirs research different pieces of music and their meanings.

Students looked at the cultural connections of the music. For example, the Cherokee song one group sang was about the Trail of Tears. Students got to learn about the displacement of the tribe during the Trail of Tears and use that to talk about Native displacement that’s still happening today.

Another group sang a song from Syria, which prompted those students to research the current Syrian refugee crisis.

“Making connections that way through music has been really powerful for them,” Petty said. “As the students get excited about the music, they’ll hopefully be more inclined to reach out on their own to learn about the culture it comes from and build empathy for others.”

The concert featured songs from Iceland, Russia, the Muscogee Tribe, the Shoshone Tribe, South Africa and the Mi’kmaq Tribe from Canada.

The mixed choir sang the song from the Mi’kmaq Tribe that featured the owl and wolf. The song is about the connection between people and the Earth.

Gabe Dorr, a freshman in the mixed choir, said he loved the unusual way the music had been written. He said usually people had flutes to do what his class was doing with their voices.

“I find that very humbling,” he said, describing the way everyone starts on one note and then peels off to different notes. “It makes it beautiful.”

Another freshman, Casidee Belnap, said she loved practicing the African dances, even though that was not her strong suit.

“We’ve learned to appreciate our tribes more and involve them in what we’re doing,” she said about the whole project. “We don’t do that enough.”

Many of the pieces include the use of a drum or shakers and some fun dance moves.

Samantha Savage, a freshman, said she was proud of her class for working so hard on the songs and was excited to perform them at the concert.

“I like how diverse it is,” she said. “We’re going through different cultures and seeing how they learn music. It’s brought people together.”